title: A practical approach to electrode-skin impedance unbalance measurement.
abstract: Unbalance between electrode-skin impedances is a major problem in biopotential recordings, leading to increased power-line interference. This paper proposes a simple, direct method to measure that unbalance at power-line frequency (50-60 Hz), thus allowing the determination of actual recording conditions for biopotential amplifiers. The method is useful in research, amplifier testing, electrode design and teaching purposes. It has been experimentally validated by using both phantom impedances and real electrode-skin impedances.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Electrónica Industrial Control e Instrumentación, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP) and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas CC 91, 1900 La Plata, Argentina. spinelli@ieee.org
authors.forename: Enrique M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Spinelli
authors.forename: Miguel A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Mayosky
authors.forename: Ramon
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pallás-Areny
mesh_terms: D000669:Amplifiers, Electronic; D016477:Artifacts; D017097:Electric Impedance; D004560:Electricity; D004566:Electrodes; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012879:Skin Physiological Phenomena