Digitally Controllable Multifrequency Impedance Emulator for Bioimpedance Hardware Validation

Abstract

The accurate emulation of the electrical impedance of biological tissues is crucial for the development and validation of bioimpedance measurement devices and algorithms. This paper describes a digitally controllable impedance emulator capable of reproducing values representative of tissue bioimpedance in user‐specified resistance, reactance, and frequency ranges up to 1 MHz. The presented solution uses a 2R‐1C impedance model to emulate the impedance characteristics of a biological tissue. Specific selection of each element value in this model is achieved using analog multiplexers with low resistance. A MATLAB algorithm was developed for value estimation using target impedance requirements. An example design to emulate impedance from 1 kHz to 1 MHz with 10 to 400 resistance and maximum reactance is provided. The nonideal behavior of this design was evaluated and compared against experimentally collected impedance measurements. Deviations of <1% were observed between experimental and theoretical resistances for values up to 100 kHz (with approximately 5% deviations up to 1 MHz) and reactance deviations were also <1% up to 10 kHz. High frequency deviations are attributed to the parasitic capacitance in the realization of the design. The experimental results validate the design approach and realization for low frequencies. Overall, the innovation of the proposed approach is the control of both resistance and reactance for emulating electrical impedance representative of biological tissues.