Micropower non-contact EEG electrode with active common-mode noise suppression and input capacitance cancellation

A non-contact EEG electrode with input capacitance neutralization and common-mode noise suppression circuits is presented. The coin sized sensor capacitively couples to the scalp without direct contact to the skin. To minimize the effect of signal attenuation and channel gain mismatch, the input capacitance of each sensor is actively neutralized using positive feedback and bootstrapping. Common-mode suppression is achieved through a single conductive sheet to establish a common mode reference. Each sensor electrode provides a differential gain of 60 dB. Signals are transmitted in a digital serial daisy-chain directly from a local 16-bit ADC, minimizing the number of wires required to establish a high density EEG sensor network. The micropower electrode consumes only 600 muW from a single 3.3 V supply.