ELECTRONIC SENSORS


Wearable Technology Trends in Healthcare


What are the markets of interest for Analog Devices and what is ADI’s current offering?


Analog Devices (ADI) is a semiconductor manufacturer and solutions provider for several industry markets. We have five target markets: industrial, communications, automotive, consumer, and medical. The medical market can be divided into several subsegments. These include medical imaging, vital sign monitoring (VSM), and medical instrumentation. We are active in every subsegment where market demand typically varies by region and due to geographical location. Noticeably, over the last couple of years, VSM has been one of the fastest growing segments in every region.


Ten years ago, VSM applications were mainly found in hospitals and professional rescue units such as ambulances and helicopters. The biggest market was for bedside monitors and monitors in intensive care departments. These high-end systems support multilead ECG measurements, oxygen saturation, body


temperature, and CO2, and measure several other parameters. Now, VSM is becoming a part of our day-to-day lives. Wearable VSM systems make it possible for physicians to remotely monitor their patients. Instead of recovering from a surgery in the hospital, patients can be discharged sooner and recover in the comfort of their home. This not only helps reduce costly medical expenses but can also improve recovery time as recovery is often quickened in a private environment. Remote VSM systems can also allow elderly people to live independently for a longer time. With the aging population, elderly care houses are becoming unaffordable, so a remote monitoring system enables fewer professionals to monitor a bigger group of people. VSM for sports and exercise is trending as well. This helps people not only monitor their vital parameters, but also shows feedback on whether the exercise is effective.


Can you speak about ADI’s portfolio of 32 FEBRUARY 2023 | ELECTRONICS TODAY


sensors and how easy it is to integrate them into a device?


The market has changed rapidly. ADI used to make individual building blocks for signal conditioning and conversion into the digital domain. Now we support complete analogue front ends that include everything from the analogue input stage up to the digital interface, including self-calibration and temperature compensation. We also include the sensor element where possible, so we now have single chip solutions for biopotential measurement, bioimpedance sensing, optical


Analog Devices’ Jan-Hein Broeders, healthcare business development manager for Europe, discusses medical market trends and how recent developments in technology continue to further benefit our health and improve our lives.


saturation (the percentage of red blood cells carrying oxygen). We started with discrete amplifiers to interface photodiode currents, followed by analogue front ends, conditioning the photocurrents, and then integrated current sources to control the LEDs used for controlling the light emitted in the system. Because not every electronic engineer is an optical engineer, we developed a half-dozen optical modules. These modules combine the analogue front end, one or more photodiodes, and the required LEDs to support a complete optical system. These are very small and


PPG measurement (for heart rate, heart rate


variability, and SpO2 monitoring), motion tracking, and accurate body temperature sensing. All these subsystems have integrated ADCs, so it is very easy to measure a certain parameter and include the measurement readings in your final application or system without the need for building a complex circuit diagram with discrete components. Optical sensors make it possible to measure heart rate at a single spot on the body, but you can also measure heart rate variability (a measure for stress level detection) or oxygen


optimised to reduce time to market and cost in this very competitive market.


What are your latest solutions in the field of healthcare?


With reference to our latest introductions, we recently launched a biomedical analogue front end called ADPD4000. In a wearable device, you often measure more than just one parameter, such as heart rate, activity, skin impedance, oxygen saturation, and body temperature. Why would you use an individual chip or sensor for every measurement? Doing


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