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With the rising need for on-body biometric sensing, the development of wearable electrophysiological sensors has been faster than ever. Surface electrodes placed on the skin need to be robust in order to measure biopotentials from the body reliably and comfortable for extended wearability. The electrical stability of nonpolarizable silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) and its low-cost, commercial production have made these electrodes ubiquitous health sensors in the clinical environment, where wet gels and long wires are accommodated by patient immobility. However, smaller, dry electrodes with wireless acquisition are essential for truly wearable, continuous health sensing. Currently, techniques for the robust fabrication of custom Ag/AgCl electrodes are lacking. Here, we present three methods for the fabrication of Ag/AgCl electrodes: oxidizing Ag in a chlorine solution, electroplating Ag, and curing Ag/AgCl ink. Each of these methods is then used to create three different electrode shapes for wearable application. Bench-top and on-body evaluation of the electrode techniques was achieved by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), calculation of variance in electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements, and analysis of auditory steady-state response (ASSR) measurement. Microstructures produced on the electrode by each fabrication technique were also investigated with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The custom Ag/AgCl electrodesmore »were found to be efficient in comparison with standard, commercial Ag/AgCl wet electrodes across all three of our presented techniques, with Ag/AgCl ink shown to be the better out of the three in bench-top and biometric recordings.« less

Multi-modal bio-sensing has recently been used as effective research tools in affective computing, autism, clinical disorders, and virtual reality among other areas. However, none of the existing bio-sensing systems support multi-modality in a wearable manner outside well-controlled laboratory environments with research-grade measurements. This work attempts to bridge this gap by developing a wearable multi-modal biosensing system capable of collecting, synchronizing, recording and transmitting data from multiple bio-sensors: PPG, EEG, eye-gaze headset, body motion capture, GSR, etc. while also providing task modulation features including visual-stimulus tagging. This study describes the development and integration of the various components of our system. We evaluate the developed sensors by comparing their measurements to those obtained by a standard research-grade bio-sensors. We first evaluate different sensor modalities of our headset, namely earlobe-based PPG module with motion-noise canceling for ECG during heart-beat calculation. We also compare the steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEP) measured by our shielded dry EEG sensors with the potentials obtained by commercially available dry EEG sensors. We also investigate the effect of head movements on the accuracy and precision of our wearable eyegaze system. Furthermore, we carry out two practical tasks to demonstrate the applications of using multiple sensor modalities for exploring previouslymore »unanswerable questions in bio-sensing. Specifically, utilizing bio-sensing we show which strategy works best for playing Where is Waldo? visual-search game, changes in EEG corresponding to true versus false target fixations in this game, and predicting the loss/draw/win states through biosensing modalities while learning their limitations in a Rock-Paper-Scissors game.« less

Conventional electroencephalography (EEG) requires placement of several electrode sensors on the scalp and, accompanied by lead wires and bulky instrumentation, makes for an uncomfortable experience. Recent efforts in miniaturization and system integration have enabled smaller systems, such as wearable, in-ear EEG devices that are gaining popularity for their unobtrusive form factor. Although in-ear EEG has been demonstrated in recent works, dynamics of the ear and ear canal that directly affect electrophysiological measurements have been largely ignored. Here, we present a quantitative analysis of electrode-skin impedance for dry-contact in-ear EEG that accounts for cerumen (earwax) and electrodermal (sweat gland) response. Custom fitted earmolds with 16 embedded electrodes were developed to map the skin conductance in the ear canal of 3 subjects. In the presence of cerumen, the measured average dry-contact impedance in the ear canal was 86% higher than canals removed of cerumen. Electrodermal activity was also found to play a role in electrode-skin impedance, showing up to 25% decrease in dry-contact impedance in response to tactile stimulation. The better understanding of the dynamics of in-ear conditions serves to improve consistency and accuracy of in-ear electrophysiology.