2016 International Conference on Computer & Communication Engineering
Arduino-Based Biosensor Impedance Measurement
Nurul Najwa Khamis, Nor F Za’bah, Ahmad Fairuzabadi Mansor, Anis Nurashikin Nordin
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Kulliyyah of Engineering,
International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
e-mail: adah510@iium.edu.my
Abstract— Currently, the cell-based biosensors have to be
connected to an expensive impedance analyzer in order to
obtain the measurement values. In addition, the
impedance analyzer is bulky and not easily portable.
Therefore, in this work, a low frequency impedance
analyzer is designed by generating a low frequency AC
signal that is sent to the sensor in order to measure the
impedance of a cell. The prototype design is able to detect
the presence of water and a cell media. It consists of a
biosensor which requires a low frequency AC input signal
and the impedance data of the water and cell media is to
be measured and displayed using an Arduino system. The
design had successfully shown that the prototype is able to
detect and differentiate the two different substances based
on their resistance and capacitance.
Keywords- biosensor; cell; impedance; Arduino
I. INTRODUCTION
Electrical cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) is
a valuable tool for real time monitoring of cell behavior
such as attachment, mobility, and growth. In order to
employ ECIS, the cells need to attach, spread and
proliferate on the sensor in the presence of adhesion-
promoting protein that mimics the extracellular matrix
(ECM) of the cells [1]. The impedance change due to the
cell growth and attachment was modeled as an
equivalent circuit consisting of resistors and capacitors
of both the cell culture media and the cells. Currently,
the impedance measurements were performed using an
impedance analyzer which is expensive and also bulky.
Efforts have been made to design a portable impedance
measuring system using embedded systems [2]–[4],
which often result in complex systems using field
programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These systems
typically allow the input to be a variable range of
sinusoidal frequencies, fed into the biosensors. Due to
this flexibility, the output impedance measurement
systems are often complex signal processing circuitry
that are handled by the FPGAs. Based on our previous
research [5]-[7], it has been found that the optimum cell
impedance measurements are made below 100 Hz, thus
it is unnecessary to design embedded systems with
excessive functionalities of varying input frequencies in
the kHz region. In this work, we have simplified the
input signal generation circuit to function only at 20 Hz
and the circuit was designed using a simple 555 timer
circuitry. Limiting the input to a 20 Hz AC signal also
simplifies the readout circuit, which was implemented
using an Arduino board and a liquid crystal display
(LCD) unit. Therefore, this work has successfully
produced a prototype that is able to perform the
measurements using a biosensor at which the impedance
978-1-5090-2427-8/16 $31.00 © 2016 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICCCE.2016.50
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico (UNAM). Downloaded on June 22,2021 at 13:17:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
data is measured and displayed using an Arduino
system.
The paper is organized as follows: Section II
describes the block diagram of the system as well as the
methodology. Section III explains the experimental data
and compares the measurement results with the
equivalent circuit model. Section IV presents the
conclusion of the work.
II. SYSTEM DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of the prototype. A
low frequency AC signal is generated using a 555 timer.
The signal is sent to the biosensor and the impedance is
measured and displayed using an Arduino system and
interface.
Fig. 1 Block Diagram of the AC Signal generator Circuit
connected the sensor
Initially, the design of a circuit that produces a low
frequency AC input signal was simulated using circuit
simulation tools such as PSPICE. The timer circuit is
then tested as an input to a resistor and capacitor and
their values are displayed using the Arduino system.
The resistor and capacitor used for testing represents the
resistive and capacitive nature of the biosensor.
Next, a biosensor is connected to the input signal
circuitry and impedance measurements using water and
cell media were made. Impedance measurements
consist of resistance and capacitance measured when
water and the cell media are placed in the biosensor
chamber. Measured resistance and capacitance values
can be used to develop an equivalent circuit model of
the biosensor.
This biosensor was fabricated on a printed circuit
board (PCB) based on the work done by [1] as shown in
Fig. 2. The PCB board consists of layers of copper
plates. The sensors are interdigitated transducers with
different spacings between the fingers. There are a total
of eight sensors on a single PCB. Each sensor is
equipped with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)
chamber to contain the fluid under test. Details
regarding fabrication of the sensor and the PDMS
chambers have been reported in [5] and [7].
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 Fig. 2 Four sensors with different electrode spacing of (1) 0.26 mm,
(2) 0.53 mm, (3) 0.8 mm and (4) 1.06 mm [1].

As mentioned earlier, the Arduino program was tested to

measure a standard resistor and capacitor. Then, it is
used to measure the impedance using the biosensor in 3
conditions: Fig. 3 The biosensor’s connection with the low frequency signal
a) nothing in the chamber (control data) (generated by the 555 timer) and the measurements are performed
b) with water in the chamber using the Arduino program
c) with cell media in the chamber
It is important to highlight that once there is a III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
substance in the chamber the biosensor can only be used
once. To mimic the impedance generated during cell A. PSPICE Simulation
growth, the biosensor was tested using Dulbecco's The 555 timer was configured in astable mode as
Modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) as the cell media. shown in Fig. 4 where the output will be a continuous
DMEM is a modification of Basal Medium Eagle pulse waveform of a specific frequency, fc which can be
(BME) that contains a four-fold higher concentration of
calculated as follows:
amino acids and vitamins, as well as additional
supplementary components. DMEM is commonly used
using cell culture as cell media to sustain cell growth. 1
fc = (Eq. 2)
0.7 ( R1 + 2R2 ) C1
The concept of the Arduino capacitance meter is that
the capacitance is a measure of the capacity of a material
to store electrical charge. The steady time of a capacitor As shown in the schematic, the values of R1 = 50 k,
is characterized as the time it takes for the voltage over R2 = 50 k and C1 = 0.47 μF, yielding an output square
the capacitor to reach 63.2% of its voltage when it is wave of 20 Hz as shown in Fig. 5.
completely charged. Bigger capacitors take more time to
charge, and subsequently have bigger time constants.
The Arduino program can measure the capacitance in
light of the fact that the time a capacitor takes to charge
is straightforwardly identified with its capacitance by the
mathematical statement:

τ = RC (Eq. 1)

where τ is the time constant of the capacitor (in seconds)

R is the resistance of the circuit (in Ohms ())
C is the capacitance of the capacitor (in farads)

The whole arrangement of the biosensor together with

the Arduino and the LCD display is shown in Fig. 3. The
555 timer circuitry fed the square wave input signal to
the biosensor electrodes to measure the impedance of the Fig. 4 The 555 timer schematic diagram
substances. The resistance and capacitance values are
calculated using Arduino program and the values are
then displayed using the LCD.

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 Fig. 5 The output of the 555 timer circuitry produces an
approximately 20 Hz square wave signal.
B. Resistance
Fig. 6 shows the range of the resistance of water and
cell media as compared to the controlled data. It shows
that the prototype design has successfully identified the
different matter to be measured using the biosensor. It
can be concluded that cell media has a higher range of
resistance.
Fig. 6 Range of resistance values (in ) for both water and cell
media.
C. Capacitance
The range of the capacitance values for both water and
cell media as compared to the controlled data is shown
in Fig. 7. It clearly indicates that the cell media has high
capacitance values (in the range of μF) whereas the
water and controlled data has values only in the range of
nF. However, it is important to note that the capacitance
values for Sensor 3 are smaller as compared than Sensor
1 due to its larger distance between the electrodes.
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Fig. 7 Range of capacitance values for both water and cell
media in comparison with the controlled data for Sensor 1 and
Sensor 3
D. Comparison with Equivalent Circuit Model
The sensor can be represented using an equivalent
circuit model based on the electrical models for
impedance biosensors [8]. Using this model, each
element, for example, cell media, electrode can be
represented using an electrical element such as resistor
or capacitor. The equivalent circuit model of the sensor
is represented in Fig. 7, where Rsol represents the
solution resistance, Cdl represents the double layer
capacitance or the capacitance that exists on the surface
of the electrodes surrounded by electrolytes, Cpar is the
capacitance between the two parallel electrodes that
form the sensor and Rct is the charge transfer resistance
that exists when a metal electrode is immersed into an
electrolyte [1].
Fig. 7 Equivalent circuit model of the sensor
The measurements were performed using two electrode
designs, Sensor 1 and Sensor 3. Sensor 1 has the
smallest spacing between the electrodes (0.26 mm) and
Sensor 3 represents the electrodes with larger spacing
(0.8 mm). The values for the elements of the equivalent
circuit model are calculated based on the dimensions of
the sensor. The double layer capacitance of an
electrolyte, Cdl was estimated to be 40 μF/cm2 [8]. For
this design, Cdl = 1.22 μF for both sensors since the area
 of the electrodes is the same. Charge transfer resistance,
Rct occurs during the electrochemical reaction between
the electrolyte and metal. Rct is estimated to be 13.4 k
at room temperature. At low frequencies, Cdl acts like an
open circuit, thus both Rct and Cdl are negligible. The
equivalent resistance of the sensor is then dominated by
Rsol and Cpar. Solution resistance, Rsol can be calculated
by:
௟
ܴ௦௢௟ ൌ ߩ (Eq. 3)
஺భ
where ρ is the resistivity of DMEM = 0.5 /mm, l is the
spacing between electrodes and A1 is the cross-sectional
area in the direction of current flow. Parasitic
capacitance, Cpar is calculated as the capacitance
between two electrode fingers using:
ఌబ ఌೝ ஺మ
‫ܥ‬௣௔௥ ൌ (Eq. 4)
௟ Micro-Electronics (CENICS), 2010, pp. 6–11.
where εo is the permittivity of free space, 8.854 x 10-
12
F/m, εr is the dielectric constant of DMEM = 80 and
A2 is the area of the electrodes [9]. The theoretical values
of Cpar and Rsol for both designs are summarized in
Table 1. The theoretical values suggest that sensors with
smaller spacing between their electrodes will have
higher capacitance compared to sensors with larger
spacing distance. This is due to the inversely
proportional relationship between capacitance and
spacing distance between the electrodes as shown in
Equation 4. Similarly, based on Equation 3, sensors with
larger spacing have higher resistance.
Table 1: Summary of theoretical and experimental results for the
measurement of cell media
Theoretical Experimental
R(kΩ) C(μF) R(kΩ) C(μF)
Sensor 1
1.578 5.82 1.5 3.6
(0.26 mm)
Sensor 3
4.857 1.89 3.3 3.2
(0.8 mm)
The experimental measurements obtained were then
compared with the theoretical calculation of the
resistance and capacitance of the sensor from [1]. From
the table, slightly different values between the
theoretical calculations and experimental measurements
can be observed. This is mainly due to the assumed
constants, ρ and εr. These constants may vary based on
the volume of electrolyte used as well as the precision of
measuring the dimensions of the sensors. It is important
to note that the equivalent circuit model shown in Fig. 7,
presents a simplified model of the experiment, and there
are other parasitic effects that have not been taken into
account in this model such as noise from the wires and
the electrode fingers.
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IV. CONCLUSION
This work has successfully designed a low cost
impedance analyzer and the results had shown that it is
able to detect and differentiate two different substances
(e.g. water and cell media) based on their resistance and
capacitance. Future work includes integrating the design
with a remote wireless network and to test the
measurement of the sensor with a cancer cell.
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