F E ATU R E : B I O M E D I CAL E N G I N E E R I N G
Biosignals for Everyone
A novel development platform extends the principles of physical
computing to the physiological domain, changing the way in which
projects and applications involving physiological data can be made
welcome news for those who prefer a do-it-yourself approach.
T
oolkits are an important asset:
they help researchers and engi-
neers advance in their field of
work without having to deepen
their expertise in somewhat
peripheral knowledge domains or reinvent
research techniques with the technology at
hand. Software has a long tradition of provid-
ing such facilities, examples of which include the
Java Swing GUI widget toolkit and the scikit-
learn software packages. Hardware is now fol-
lowing a similar path, with low-cost toolkits
driving innovation in ways
never before seen.
A lmost a decade and
thousands of assembled units
after its debut, the Arduino
Hugo Plcido da Silva, Ana Fred,
platform has become the
and Ral Martins
centerpiece of any maker
University of Lisbon or tinkerers toolbox. As its
website explains, Arduino
is an open source electronics
platform based on easy-to-use hardware and
software. Its intended for anyone making
interactive projects. Since its humble beginnings
in 2005 as the brain child of Massimo Banzi and
his team,1 researchers at the MIT Media Lab
have made it clothing-compatible, 2 and it has
become the de facto accessory development kit
for Googles Android OS.
Do-it-yourself hardware platforms have
grown in their own right, fostering the
development of interactive systems that
bridge the analog and digital worlds in what
is broadly defined as physical computing. 3 So
far, physical computing has been characterized
by the use of sensors and actuators designed to
64 PER VA SI V E computing
deal with very simple requirements in terms of
signal acquisition setup, such as the need for
a relatively high tolerance to noise or for low
sampling rates.
Physiological computing, on the other hand,
poses several different challenges related to the
more complicated requirements of physiological
data acquisition (for example, the need for higher
signal-to-noise ratios or greater accuracy in the
sampling rate). To address these challenges, we
present a novel development platform especially
designed to consider the requirements of
physiological data acquisition. Furthermore,
our platform makes biosignals readily available
to anyone interested in exploring the field and
provides a framework that we hope can drive
a new wave of research and projects within the
global research and engineering community.
Lets Get Physiological
Biosignals have been used in the healthcare and
medical domains for more than 100 years, the
best-known examples being electrocardiography
(ECG) and electroencephalography (EEG)
signals. The application of engineering
principles and devices in the field has proven
to be of paramount importance, leading to
remarkable technical, methodological, and
scientific achievements.4 Today, biosignals are
an increasingly popular research topic within
the global engineering community: their
potential applications far extend the medical
arena, paving the way for the nascent field of
physiological computing.5
Physiological computing can be generally
defined as the study and development of
interactive software and hardware systems
Published by the IEEE CS n 1536-1268/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE
capable of sensing, processing,
reacting, and interfacing the digital and
analog worlds. The difference between
it and physical computing is the fact
that physiological computing focuses
specifically on the use of biosignals,
which opens up a whole separate class
of problems. Although biomedical
engineering is a related classical
discipline, today biosignals drive
hobbyists, students, engineers, and
other user groups in fields including
computer science, informatics, and (a)
electrical engineering.
Modern physiological computing
applications include mechanical
engineering for human performance
enhancement using exoskeletons, 6
electrical engineering for health
sensing and telemedicine, 7 and
computer science for HCI,8 among
others. 911 Health sensing alone is
extremely importantfor example,
periodic biosignal monitoring
enables early-stage discovery and
management of problems such as (b)
heart attacks or stroke before they
occur, 4,7 and real-time assessment
can be fundamental for things like
muscle-skeletal rehabilitation or
injury prevention.
More recently, the HCI and pervasive
computing communities have started
using biosignals for a variety of
applications, such as demonstrating
the feasibility of muscle-computer
interfaces with sensors mounted on
the forearm,12 and exploring the use (c)
of sympathetic nervous system activity
and motion for stress recognition in a
Figure 1. BITalino biosignal acquisition hardware in its different configurations: (a)
mobile environment.13
board, (b) plugged, (c) freestyle.

Anatomy of a BITalino
Physical computing researchers have
the Arduino and its successors and
predecessors, but the physiological
computing community lacks a
comparable tool. Biosignals have
specific requirements for which typical
physical computing platforms arent
particularly tuned, and many projects
end up heavily bounded by the high
cost and limited access to suitable
hardware materials. Building on the
guiding principles of existing physical
computing hardware platforms, we
created BITalino, a highly versatile
toolkit designed to make biosignals
available for anyone interested in
innovative and creative engineering in
a physiological computing framework
(www.bitalino.com). Figure 1 depicts
the BITalino development platform,
and Table 1 summarizes its primary
specifications.
The hardware consists of a low-
cost, modular wireless biosignal
acquisition system, with a credit
card-sized form factor that integrates
multiple measurement sensors for
bioelectrical and biomechanical data

OCTOBERDECEMBER 2014 PER VA SI V E computing 65

 FEATURE: BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

TABLE 1
BITalinos specifications.
Specifications
Sampling rate Configurable to 1, 10, 100, or 1,000 Hz
Analog ports 4 input (10 bit) + 2 input (6 bit)
Digital ports 4 input (1 bit) + 4 output (1 bit)
Data link Class II Bluetooth v2.0 (~10-m range)
Actuators LED
Sensors EMG, ECG, EDA, ACC, and LUX
Weight 30 g
Size 100 60 mm
Battery 3.7-V LiPo
Consumption ~65 mAh (with all peripherals active)
acquisition. The digital back end is connected and using a 1,000-Hz
supported by a control block based sampling rate, BITalino uses around
on the ATmega328P microcontroller, 65 mAh (approximately 60 percent
a power management block, and from the Bluetooth module alone
a communication block that uses a and approximately 15 percent from
Class II Bluetooth v2.0 module for the LED). If just one or two sensors
wireless data transfer; two auxiliary are used, an average of approxi-
connectivity blocks enable RJ22 mately 50 mAh can be achieved,
plugs to be added to the device. The enabling BITalino to run continu-
analog front end integrates individual ously for close to 10 hours using the
sensor blocks for electromyography standard battery provided in the kit.
(EMG), electrocardiography (ECG), BITalinos modular design enables
electrodermal activity (EDA), and the battery to be easily swapped for
accelerometry (ACC); the board a larger or smaller one, depending
is also fitted with light-sensing on the given use case. Considering
(LUX) and LED blocks, to enable that 2-Ah compact batteries (0.25
synchronization with third-party 2.1 2.4, and 36 g) are readily
equipment such as a computer screen available, a user can achieve more
or video camera. than 40 hours of battery life in con-
BITalino is currently provided tinuous operation.
as a kit that includes all the basic
components anyone would need One Board, Many Options
to enter the world of biosignals By default, the system comes as a
namely, the previously described single board, with onboard sensors
hardware blocks; a 550 mAh preconnected to analog and digital
rechargeable LiPo battery; a two-lead ports on the control block. However,
electrode cable assembly (for ECG the control, power, and communication
and EDA); a three-lead electrode blocks, as well as the firmware, are
cable assembly (for ECG and EMG); completely general purpose, enabling
and a pack of five multipurpose pre- people to use BITalinos digital back
gelled Ag/AgCl electrodes that can end with their own custom sensor
be used for ECG, EMG, or EDA data and actuator designs. The BITalino
acquisition. platforms versatility even extends to
In a worst-case power consump- the point where each individual block
tion scenario where all the sen- can be physically detached from the
sors and LEDs are simultaneously main board, allowing people to use it
in many different ways, typically in the
following three configurations:
r
board, or without modifications, so
people can simply experiment with
the onboard sensors to support exper-
imental activities or illustrate theoret-
ical concepts through thereal-time
observation of underlying physiologi-
cal phenomena (Figure 1a);
r
plugged, where the analog front end
is separated from the BITalino main
board, leaving only the control,
power, communication, and auxil-
iary connectivity blocks so that peo-
ple can interchangeably use different
sensor combinations, connecting the
sensor by cable (Figure 1b); and
r
freestyle, where all the individual dig-
ital and analog blocks are detached
from the BITalino main board, en-
abling people to combine them in any
way that best suits their project ideas
and applications (Figure 1c).
We also designed the analog front
end to enable BITalino to be a broad-
spectrum development platform for
experimentation and rapid prototyping
based on biosignals. The onboard
sensors enable anyone to easily explore
and work with the following:
r
ECG, which is useful for one-lead
measurement of the hearts bioelec-
trical activity and derived parameters
(heart rate, heart rate variability, and
so on) and can be applied in any stan-
dard location (such as the chest, left/
right hand palms, or left/right fingers).
Its important to highlight that this
particular sensor integrates previous
work by our group,14 which is why
it can either work in a standard three-
(+, , and ground) or two-electrode
configuration (in which a virtual
ground isused).
r
EMG, which is useful for measur-
ing muscular bioelectrical activity
and derived parameters such as on-
set and duration. This sensor can
be applied to any surface muscle
and the output data used as control

66 PER VA SI V E computing www.computer.org/pervasive

 TABLE 2
Onboard peripheral specifications.

ECG EMG EDA ACC LUX LED

Principle Voltage Voltage Resistance Micro-Electro- Photo transistor
differential differential Mechanical
System (MEMS)
Electrodes 2 or 3 3 2
Bandwidth 0.540Hz 10400 Hz 03 Hz 050 Hz
Input impedance 100G @ 3pF 100G @ 3pF
CMRR 110 dB 110 dB
Range 1.5 mV 1.65 mV 01 M 3 G 360970 nm

Gain 1100 1000 2

Consumption ~4 mAh ~4 mAh ~2 mAh ~350 uAh ~50 uAh ~10 mAh

signals in biomechatronics or HCI
applications.12
r
EDA, which is useful for measuring
skin resistance. A typical use case is
to assess sympathetic nervous sys-
tem activity with two sensor leads
applied to the palms or feet, allow-
ing the measurement of emotional
arousal situations associated with
variations in skin impedance caused
by increased sweat secretion.15
r
ACC, which is useful for measuring
biomechanical events such as tilt,
step counting, fall detection, and
physical activity.
r
LUX, which is useful for measur-
ing ambient luminosity or for opti-
cal synchronization with external
sources (a typical example is the syn-
chronization of BITalino with con-
tent presented on a computer screen).
Table 2 presents some of the
specifications of the individual sensor
blocks provided by default on the
analog front end. All sensors have an
analog output, this being the primary
connection between any sensor and
the microcontroller unit (MCU) block,
regardless of whether its an onboard,
third-party, or custom-designed sensor.
Together with the general-purpose
firmware, this makes it possible for
users to easily interface with virtually
any sensor. We also designed BITalino
so that users can connect multiple
sensors of the same type in parallel,
a common requirement for, say,
acquiring several EMG channels at the
same time.
Designed with Everyone in Mind
Weve put considerable effort into
designing something that has both
flexibility and ease of use. One of the
largest barriers to using physiological
sensors such as EMG, ECG, and EDA
is connecting the cables between the
electrodes and the analog front end.
BITalino eases this burden to the point
where the user just places the electrodes
on the body and snaps the connectors
into place. Figure 2 shows the physical
interface between a users body and the
BITalino board (in this case, for EMG
and EDA).
As we previously described, the
default approach for data transfer
is the Bluetooth interface; given that
one of our goals was to keep costs
as low as possible, the standard
Bluetooth module only supports the
Serial Port Profile (SPP). However,
the MCU block fully exposes the
universal asynchronous receiver/
transmitter (UART) pins, letting users
replace the standard module with a
more advanced one or to use another
interface that they find more suitable
for their application. With this design
feature, users can even interface
embedded systems (such as Raspberry
Pi) directly with BITalino through the
UART port.
Another important aspect that we
focused on is safety. When building
electronics that directly interface
with the human bodyparticularly,
sensors that require low impedance
electrodesits extremely important
to ensure that the user is protected
from electrical hazards.11,16 Electrodes
should facilitate electrical outflows
from the body to the sensor, but if a
major electrical event such as a power
surge affects the sensor, they can also
act as privileged inflow channels from
the sensor to the body.
BITalino is battery operated and uses
a wireless interface for data transfer,
guaranteeing that its completely
independent from any high voltage
power source during normal operation.
To prevent electrical hazards, its
important to make sure that BITalino
isnt coupled at any time with the
mains or any other high voltage power
source either directly or indirectly (via
a third-party device or test equipment).
The power management block is
fitted with a USB connector for charging
(as shown in Figure 1)as such, users
should verify that the charging cord
is disconnected prior to connecting
BITalino sensors to their body. Failure
to do so raises a major safety concern:
increased risk of electric shock due
to a potentially high common-mode
voltage on the USB signals coupled
with the low impedance path to the
body via the electrodes. Furthermore,

OCTOBERDECEMBER 2014 PER VA SI V E computing 67

 FEATURE: BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
(a)
Figure 2. Examples of physical connection between a BITalino board and the body for two of the onboard sensors: (a) electro-
myography (EMG) and (b) electrodermal activity (EDA).
when using testing equipment such as
oscilloscopes or tapping directly into
the UART pins for communication
with third-party devices, users should
make sure that these external devices
have a medical grade or isolated power
supply prior to connecting BITalino
sensors to their body.
One more safety aspect that users
should take into account is bias currents
across the body and organs such as the
heart. When connecting low impedance
electrodes on the skin surface, the
voltage and current levels dont cause
problems because skin has very high
impedance. However, connecting
electrodes to open wounds or body
areas not covered by skin (for example,
inside the mouth) can be dangerous
because the skins high impedance
isolation no longer exists.
What about Software?
The BITalino toolkit has multiple
software components, including
the firmware on the MCU, the
programming APIs, and the high-level
application for the base station.
Although the BITalino MCU block
uses an AVR-based chip similar to
that of standard Arduino boards, the
68 PER VA SI V E computing
(b)
Arduino bootloader and libraries
introduce a considerable runtime
overhead, leading to a high skew
and jitter in the sampling rate. Along
with the overall hardware design,
BITalino has a purpose-built firmware,
optimized to acquire a maximum of six
analog and four digital channels at up
to 1,000-Hz sampling with maximum
performance, so its not yet compatible
with the Arduino IDE.
Currently, BITalino can only be
reprogrammed by using an in-system
programmer (ISP), although users
should read the original fuse settings
and back up the firmware, if needed.
All the sensors and peripherals on
BITalino are compatible with popular
do-it-yourself hardware platforms,
meaning that people wanting to
create their own biosignal-enabled
embedded application can use an
Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or other low-
cost platform as the MCU block.
Alternatively, users can also interface
BITalino with their platform of choice
via the UART.
Weve attempted to provide maximum
flexibility in any interaction with devices.
Communication with BITalino can
happen at the byte-stream level, using the
communication protocol implemented in
the firmware. Its also possible to choose
from a growing number of programming
APIs for languages such as Python, Java,
and Matlab, among others, allowing
users to communicate with BITalino and
access sensor data in their own software
applications.
At the user level, people can install
our OpenSignals software framework
(previously known as SignalBIT)
and use it to visualize and record
biosignal data in real time or to review
previously recorded data. We designed
this framework using a client-server
and model-view-controller (MVC)
approach, in which the back end is
implemented in Python and the front
end is a Web-based GUI. All the source
code is available upon install, allowing
users to customize the software to their
preferences or to create purpose-built
derived applications. Figure 3 shows
the GUI for the main menu and real-
time data acquisition screens, showing
plots with real-world data for ECG,
EDA, EMG (two muscle activations),
and ACC (one full rotation over
thez-axis).
Our ongoing work focuses on
a software framework for mobile
www.computer.org/pervasive
devicesin particular, for the Android
operating system (available upon
request). Figure 4 shows the GUIs for
two applications developed using this
framework, which we call MobileBIT
(see Figures 4a and 4f).
A major barrier to working with
physiological sensors is signal
processing. To tackle this issue, were
working on a toolbox called BioSPPy
(for BioSignal Processing in Python)
that provides basic signal processing
and feature extraction functions. Our
goal is to continue growing the toolbox
to include additional signal processing
(a)
and interpretation methods.

BITalinos in the Wild

Weve conducted several user studies
and experimental activities to
demonstrate that people with different
backgrounds can use BITalino in
their projects. Each experiment was
application-specific and had the base
BITalino board as a starting point. The
most popular sensor by far has been
the ECG. Given its use in medical and
quality-of-life applications, this signal
and some of its derived features are
already widely known and familiar to
most people.
In one case, we fit BITalino to a
bicycle, using a conductive fabric on the (b)
handlebars for the electrodes. As Figure
4a shows, this setup enables heart rate Figure 3. OpenSignals software framework GUI: (a) main menu and (b) real-time
monitoring just by holding the bicycle data acquisition screen with ECG, EMG, EDA, and ACC.
handlebars as you normally would,
preventing the need to fit a chest strap
or any other body-mounted device. To ECG signals while the person used The base board and sensors were broken
demonstrate the use of physiological a computer (see Figure 4c). Another down into individual components
signals to control third-party devices, project used BITalino in a game station (freestyle variant); the student then
we fit a BITalino freestyle on an arm controller to assess the feasibility of merged BITalinos digital blocks with the
band and a BITalino plugged to an ECG data acquisition in the context ECG board into a compact unit with two
electrically controlled door lock, letting of game playing. A BITalino freestyle exposed electrodes, enabling heart rate
the user unlock the door just by flexing was fit inside the controller, with two monitoring whenever users place their
his muscle (see Figure 4b). electrodes placed on the outer shell, fingers on the electrodes (see Figures 4e
One of the research lines actively one in each grip handle; Figure 4d and 4f).
developed within our group is related depicts our prototype, showing the

to the use of ECG signals for biometric
applications via nonintrusive sensor
technologies. One recent project adapted
BITalino to a computer keyboard,
enabling continuous monitoring of
W
right-hand-side electrode (the users
hand covers the left-hand side). e envision the future
A recent student project created a form for this area to be quite
factor that fit the BITalino on to the back of broad. Short-term
a mobile phone for heart rate monitoring. progress will involve

OCTOBERDECEMBER 2014 PER VA SI V E computing 69

 FEATURE: BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

achieve. Another interesting future di-

rection will be in off-the-person sens-
ing,14 with physiological data acquisi-
tion devices integrated in the everyday
objects with which the user interacts
rather than via a body-mounted
apparatus.
Around the toolkit itself, ongoing
work in our group is focusing on
adding Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C)
support for the firmware and APIs,
ultimately letting BITalino interface
with accessories over a digital bus.
Were also doing extensive work on
(a) (b)
accessories that can enable users to
collect data from other physiological
sources. In the long term, were
focusing on making the MCU
reprogrammable and on building
up the suite of available software
tools, with a special emphasis on
signal processing and interpretation
components.
Our goal with BITalino is that
virtually anyone can have access to a
basic set of tools, analogous to what
the Lego Mindstorms kit does for
(c) (d) robotics and the Arduino does for
physical computing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was partially funded by Fundao para a
Cincia e Tecnologia (FCT) under the grants PTDC/
EEI-SII/2312/2012 and SFRH/BD/65248/2009,
whose support we gratefully acknowledge.

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Figure 4. Examples of several projects done with the BITalino platformthe most ing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical
popular sensor has been the ECG: (a) bicycle handlebars with heart rate monitor; (b) World with Computers, Thomson, 2004.
a muscle-activated door lock; (c) a keyboard for continuous ECG acquisition; (d) a
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the AUTHORS
Hugo Silva is a PhD student at the Instituto Superior Tcnico (IST), University
of Lisbon (UL), Portugal. His work has been distinguished with several academic
and technical awards, and his main interest areas include biosignal research
andpattern recognition. Silva received an MSc in electrical and computer
engineering from UTL. Contact him at hsilva@lx.it.pt.

8. B. Graimann, B. Allison, and G. Ana Fred is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Instituto Superior
Pfurtscheller, eds., Brain Computer Inter- Tcnico (IST), University of Lisbon (UL), Portugal. Her research interests include
faces, Springer, 2011. pattern recognition, with application to data mining, learning systems, and
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Selected CS articles and columns
are also available for free at
http://ComputingNow.computer.org.

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