Bioelectrical impedance techniques in medicine. Part III: Impedance imaging. First section: general concepts and hardware.

Measurement accuracy is a key point in impedance imaging and is mainly limited by factors that take place in the acquisition system. This part is a review of hardware solutions developed in acquisition systems for electrical impedance tomography (EIT). The general principles of EIT along with the changes that have taken place in the last decade, in terms of measurement strategy, and a certain number of definitions are introduced. The major hardware error sources that occur in the front end of EIT systems are presented. A review of the various alternatives published in the literature that are used to drive current, including current and voltage approaches, and the main solutions recommended in the literature to overcome the key point drawbacks of voltage measurement systems, including voltage buffers, instrumentation amplifiers, and demodulators, are provided. Some calibration procedures and approaches for the evaluation of the performance of EIT systems are also presented.