Wireless Interface for Electrical Impedance Tomography

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a non-invasive medical imaging technique, in which the bio-impedance of a part of the body is inferred from surface electrode measurements and used to form a tomographic image of that part. EIT is particularly useful for monitoring lung function because the resistivity of the lung tissue is higher than most other soft tissues in the thorax. Lung tissue resistivity also decreases several folds between inhalation and exhalation, which explains why monitoring ventilation is currently the most promising clinical application of EIT. EIT plays a crucial role in monitoring patients aided by mechanical ventilation, as the usage of mechanical ventilation frequently results in ventilator-associated lung injury (VALI). To enable portability and continuous remote monitoring of patients, it is desirable to incorporate wireless transmission capability to the EIT device. The main objective of this research is to design and establish a wireless interface for the transmission of bio-impedance data from the human body, to obtain real-time tomographic imaging.