Estimating the Shape of the Fetal Pulse Curve for Transabdominal Pulse Oximetry using Synchronous Averaging.

A sufficient oxygen supply of the fetus is necessary for a proper development of the organs. Transabdominal fetal pulse oximetry is a method that allows to measure the oxygenation of the fetal blood non-invasively by placing the light sources and photodetectors on the belly of the pregnant woman. The shape of the measured fetal pulse wave is needed to extract parameters for the estimation of the oxygen saturation. This work presents an extension of our previously presented signal processing strategy that allows to extract an average shape of the fetal pulse wave from noisy mixed photoplethysmograms (PPG) with dominating maternal and very weak fetal signal components. An adaptive noise canceller and a comb filter are used to suppress the maternal component. The quality of the resulting fetal signal is sufficient to identify single pulse waves in time domain. Further processing demonstrates the extraction of the mean shape of a single fetal pulse wave by synchronous averaging of several detected pulses. The method is evaluated with different datasets of several simulated and synthetic signals measured with a tissue mimicking phantom. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by preparing the mixed PPGs to perform fetal pulse oximetry in future studies. However, clinical measurements are needed to finally evaluate the proposed system beyond synthetic datasets.

Phantom materials mimicking the optical properties in the near infrared range for non-invasive fetal pulse oximetry.

An optical phantom of the maternal abdomen during pregnancy is an appropriate test environment to evaluate a non-invasive system for fetal pulse oximetry. To recreate the optical properties of maternal tissue, fetal tissue and blood suitable substitutes are required. For this purpose, phantom materials are used, which consist of transparent silicone or water as host material. Cosmetic powder and India ink are investigated as absorbing materials, whereas titanium dioxide particles are examined as scattering medium. Transmittance and reflectance measurements of the samples were performed in the spectral range from 600 nm to 900 nm using integrating sphere technique. The scattering and absorption coefficients and the anisotropy factor were determined using Kubelka-Munk theory. The results were used to compute the required mixture ratios of the respective components to replicate the optical properties of maternal tissue, fetal tissue and blood, and corresponding samples were produced. Their optical properties were investigated in the same manner as mentioned above. The results conform to the values of various types of tissues and blood given in the scientific literature.

A phantom with pulsating artificial vessels for non-invasive fetal pulse oximetry.

Arterial oxygen saturation of the fetus is an important parameter for monitoring its physical condition. During labor and delivery the transabdominal non-invasive fetal pulse oximetry could minimize the risk for mother and fetus, compared to other existing invasive examination methods. In this contribution, we developed a physical-like phantom to investigate new sensor circuits and algorithms of a non-invasive diagnostic method for fetal pulse oximetry. Hence, the developed artificial vascular system consists of two independent tube systems representing the maternal and fetal vessel system. The arterial blood pressure is reproduced with a pre-pressure and an artificial vascular system. Each pulse wave can be reproduced, by digital control of a proportional valve, adjustable viscoelastic elements, and resistances. The measurements are performed by pressure transducers, optical sensor units, and a coplanar capacitive sensor. Transmission and reflection measurements have shown that the fetal and maternal pulse waves can be reproduced qualitatively. The measured light represents the transabdominal modulated signal on an abdomen of a pregnant woman.

Ultra-wearable capacitive coupled and common electrode-free ECG monitoring system.

Nowadays, transfer of the health care from ambulance to patient's home needs higher demand on patient's mobility, comfort and acceptance of the system. Therefore, the goal of this study is to proof the concept of a system which is ultra-wearable, less constraining and more suitable for long term measurements than conventional ECG monitoring systems which use conductive electrolytic gels for low impedance electrical contact with skin. The developed system is based on isolated capacitive coupled electrodes without any galvanic contact to patient's body and does not require the common right leg electrode. Measurements performed under real conditions show that it is possible to acquire well known ECG waveforms without the common electrode when the patient is sitting and even during walking. Results of the validation process demonstrate that the system performance is comparable to the conventional ECG system while the wearability is increased.

Measuring the attenuation characteristics of biological tissues enabling for low power in vivo RF transmission.

In clinical routine there is a need of periodical recording of vital parameters in high risk groups, for example the intraocular pressure. A solution for this could be an intracorporeal sensor using a wireless radio frequency (RF) transmitter. Thereby the risk of an infection is reduced, because a percutaneous connection is not necessary. A limiting factor for some organs is the size of implants. For designing an energy efficient low power RF transmitter, the dielectric parameters of representative biological tissues have to be determined. In this article two methods of measurement are presented, the coaxial probe and transmission line method. With this information about the dielectric parameters a miniaturized RF transmitter was built for proofing tests on phantoms with equal properties like biological tissue.