The awarded article, out of 230 submitted works, is by Andrea Ria, Simone Contardi, Massimo Piotto and Paolo Bruschi
Best Paper Award by four DII scientists at SpliTech 2024 (9th International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Technologies).
The awarded work, "A miniaturized ECG system based on a versatile single chip sensor interface" proposes an ECG system with dimensions of a few centimeters, which allows to perform a 3-electrode electrocardiogram and simultaneously perform a multi-electrode bioimpedance measurement (BIA). All using low-cost commercial electrodes.
"In recent years - says the first author of the article Andrea Ria, researcher in Electronic Engineering at DII - we have witnessed a great growth in research oriented to the electronic design of systems for the detection and monitoring of vital parameters, increasingly smaller and minimally invasive systems to allow prolonged detections over time without these hindering patients in their normal daily activities.
To allow a complete view of the patient's health status, the systems should be able to simultaneously monitor different types of parameters, including chemical ones, physical quantities and electrical signals (biopotentials) and bioimpedance (BIA).
Our system is able to perform an electrocardiogram and, at the same time, the BIA. Both measurements allow us to give an initial assessment of the health status of the human cardiovascular system.
The strength of the work lies in the innovative integrated sensor interface, completely created by the research group led by Paolo Bruschi and Massimo Piotto. The created platform is able to work with different types of sensors, stimulate them and read them in an optimal way and communicate the measurements taken with digital protocols.
The future development of the work will include the option of wearability of the device and wireless communication of the system with a portable device (smartphone, tablet, etc.)".
The research line dedicated to the new frontiers of medicine through the design of personalized and Human-Centric devices is carried out within the FoReLab laboratory of the department, where our researchers develop technologies for society and industry 5.0, a new paradigm that places man and the environment as fixed and central points, around which and because of which technological progress is expressed.
Research on medicine 5.0 within the DII sees the active collaboration of various interdisciplinary groups, which include biomedical, electronic and robotic engineers, in an approach that addresses the issue of the relationship between man, technology and health in all its facets.
Andrea Ria (Senior Member IEEE since 2023) obtained a bachelor's degree, master's degree and a PhD in Electronic Engineering at the University of Pisa in 2014, 2016 and 2021. He is currently a researcher at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa. In 2019 he won the "Distinguished service award" during the RFID-TA conference. In 2018 he received the second prize of "Huawei Italy University Challenge". He is the vice president of the IEEE Student Branch of the University of Pisa. His research activity focuses on integrated mixed-signal interfaces for low-voltage and low-power sensors.
