OMD551-BASIC OF BIOMEDICAL

INSTRUMENTATION

UNIT-3
DIFFERENTIAL AMPLIFIER
SINGLE OP- AMP IN DIFFERIENTIAL
AMPLIER COMFIGURATION
INVERTING MODE
NON INVERTING MODE
 IMPEDANCE MATCHING CIRCUITS
INSTRUMENTATION AMPLIFIER
Isolation amplifier
Transformer isolation type
Optical isolation type
Capacitive isolation type
ECG isolation amplifier
Power line interference
Electro static shielding
Right leg driven ECG Amplifier
 Band pass filter
Low band pass filter using op amp
High pass filter
Band pass filter
 BIO-MEDICAL PRE-AMPLIFIERS
• Conditions to be satisfied
– Voltage gain should be more than 100 dB
– Should have low frequency response (from DC to
required frequency of biosignal)
– Gain and frequency response should be uniform
throughout the required bandwidth
– No drift
– Input impedance should be high
• ECG - > 10 MΩ
• EEG - > 100 MΩ
– Output impedance should be small
– CMRR should be >80 dB to eliminate 50 Hz
interference from mains
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 INSTRUMENTATION AMPLIFIER
• Limitations of Differential amplifier
– Limited input impedance
– CMRR may not exceed 60 dB in most of the cases

• These limitations have been overcome with an

improved version of differential amplifier

• Instrumentation amplifier consists of

– 3 op-amps
– 7 resistors

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• A3 and its four resistors R form a differential
amplifier with a gain of 1
• Variable resistor Rvar is varied to balance out
any common-mode voltage
• Resistor Rg is used to set gain using the
formula

• Where,

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• Advantages
– Extremely high input impedance
– Low bias and offset currents
– Less performance deterioration if source
impedance changes
– Possibility of independent reference levels for
source and amplifier
– Very high CMRR
– High slew rate
– Low power consumption

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 ISOLATION AMPLIFIERS
• Commonly used for providing protection
against leakage currents

• 3 methods are used in design of isolation

amplifiers
1. Transformer isolation
2. Optical isolation
3. Capacitive isolation

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ISOLATION AMPLIFIER (Transformer type)

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• Uses either
– Frequency modulated carrier signal or
– Pulse width modulated carrier signal

• Bandwidth of carrier signal upto 30 kHz

• It uses internal DC-DC converter comprising of

– 20 kHz oscillator
– Transformer
– Rectifier and
– filter

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OPTICALLY ISOLATED ISOLATION AMPLIFIER

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• Isolation could be achieved by optical means
• Here the patient will be connected to neither
the main line nor the ground line
• Separate battery operated circuit supplies
power to the patient circuit
• Signal of interest is converted into light by a
light source (LED)
• Light falls on a phototransistor on the output
side which converts light signal into electrical
signal

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CAPACITIVELY COUPLED ISOLATION AMPLIFIER

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• Capacitive isolation is based on an electric field
that changes with the level of charge on a
capacitor plate

• This charge is detected across an isolation barrier

and is proportional to the level of the measured
signal

• Uses digital encoding of the input voltage and

frequency modulation to send the signal across a
differential capacitive barrier

• Bandwidths upto 70 kHz can be conveniently

handled
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 RELATIVE ADVANTAGES OF THREE
TYPES OF ISOLATION AMPLIFIERS
• Usage
– All 3 types are common in use
– Though the transformer isolation amplifier is popular
one

• Cost
– Opto-coupled amplifiers use less no. of components,
hence cost effective
– Transformer coupled amplifiers are costlier than opto-
coupled amplifiers
– Capacitor coupled amplifier is the most expensive

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• Isolation voltage (between input and output)
– Opto-coupled: 800 V
– Transformer coupled: 1200 V
– Capacitance coupled: 2200 V

• Isolation resistance
– Opto-coupled: 1012 Ω
– Transformer coupled: 1010 Ω
– Capacitance coupled: 1012 Ω

• Gain stability and linearity

– Capacitance coupled: 0.005 %
– Transformer and opto-coupled: 0.02%

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 CHOPPER AMPLIFIERS
• Chopper – used to convert the D.C. or low frequency
signal into high frequency signal

• This modulated high frequency is amplified by

conventional a.c. amplifier

• Finally amplified signal is demodulated and filtered to

get amplified DC or low frequency signal

• Chopper amplifier has no drift

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 Chopper
amplifier

Mechanical Non-mechanical
chopper chopper
amplifier amplifier

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MECHANICAL CHOPPER AMPLIFIER

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• S1 is electromagnetically operated switch or relay

• It connects alternatively the input terminal of the

A.C. amplifier ‘A’ to the reference ‘Q’ which is
usually connected to ground (short circuit)

• When chopper S1 is open, the amplifier receives

the voltage from P

• Therefore input to the amplifier consists of AC

voltage

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• By this process the DC signal is chopped into
train of square wave pulses having frequency
equal to the rate of the chopper

• After amplification the chopped signal is

rectified with diode D

• The rectified signal is then filtered and the

amplified D.C. or slowly varying signal is
obtained at the output terminals M and N

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• Response time of chopper amplifier is governed
by the chopping or sampling rate.

• It is important as the signal being chopped is not

changing between samples (as it is slowly
varying)

• If signal is changing slowly then it is necessary to

use a high chopping rate (atleast > 10 times the
highest frequency component of the signal)

• Using mechanical choppers we cannot achieve

high chopping rates due to their inertia

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NON-MECHANICAL CHOPPER
AMPLIFIER

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• Photoconductors or photodiodes are used as
non-mechanical choppers for modulation (dc to
ac conversion) and demodulation (ac to dc
conversion)

• An oscillator drives two neon bulbs into

illumination on alternate half cycles of oscillation

• Neon bulb (1) gives flash of light on

photoconductors PC1 and PC2

• Neon bulb (2) gives flash of light on

photoconductors PC 3 and PC4

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• When light falls on PC1, the input capacitor
charges

• When there is no light on PC1 and light is on PC3,

the input flows through PC3

• Thus alternate incident light on PC1 and PC3

causes square wave across input capacitor
(amplitude proportional to input and frequency
proportional to oscillator frequency)

• This square wave act as input to the amplifier and

gets amplifies at the amplifier output

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• PC2 and PC4 in the amplifier output circuit
recover the DC signal by their demodulating
action

• The output capacitor charges to the peak of

output voltage

• This amplified DC output voltage is passed

through a low pass filter to remove any ripples
and finally amplified DC output is obtained
• Limitation
– The transition time between high and low resistance
states of photoconductors limits the chopping rate
upto a few hundred Hz eventhough the oscillator can
deliver high frequency driving voltage
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