Okamoto Eiji, Kato Yoshikuni, Kikuchi Sakiko, Mitamura Yoshinori
Graduate School of Engineering and Science, Tokai University, Sapporo, Japan.
Graduate School of Information Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
Biomed Mater Eng. 2014;24(4):1735-42. doi: 10.3233/BME-140985.
The electrical property between an electrode and skin or tissue is one of the important issues for communication performance of the transcutaneous communication system (TCS) using a human body as a conductive medium.In this study, we used a simple method to measure interface resistance between the electrode and skin on the surface of the body. The electrode-electrode impedance was measured by a commercially available LCR meter with changes in the distance between two electrodes on an arm of a healthy male subject, and we obtained the tissue resistivity and electrode-skin interface resistance using the cross-sectional area of the arm.We also measured transmission gain of the TCS on the surface of the body, and we investigated the relationship between electrode-skin interface resistance and transmission gain. We examined four kinds of electrodes: a stainless steel electrode, a titanium electrode, an Ag-AgCl electrode and an Ag-AgCl paste electrode. The stainless steel electrode, which had lower electrode-skin resistance, had higher transmission gain.The results indicate that an electrode that has lower electrode-skin resistance will contribute to improvement of the performance of the TCS and that electrode-skin interface resistance is one of valuable evaluation parameters for selecting an optimum electrode for the TCS.
电极与皮肤或组织之间的电学特性是使用人体作为导电介质的经皮通信系统（TCS）通信性能的重要问题之一。在本研究中，我们采用一种简单方法来测量身体表面电极与皮肤之间的界面电阻。通过商用LCR仪表测量健康男性受试者手臂上两个电极之间距离变化时的电极 - 电极阻抗，并利用手臂的横截面积获得组织电阻率和电极 - 皮肤界面电阻。我们还测量了身体表面TCS的传输增益，并研究了电极 - 皮肤界面电阻与传输增益之间的关系。我们考察了四种电极：不锈钢电极、钛电极、Ag - AgCl电极和Ag - AgCl糊剂电极。具有较低电极 - 皮肤电阻的不锈钢电极具有较高的传输增益。结果表明，具有较低电极 - 皮肤电阻的电极有助于改善TCS的性能，并且电极 - 皮肤界面电阻是为TCS选择最佳电极的重要评估参数之一。
