Biomedical Signal Processing and Bioinstrumentation - Focus area
Numerous types of biomedical signals such as the electrocardiogram (ECG) of the heart, the electroencephalogram (EEG) of the brain, sequences from DNA chips and many more are acquired from the human body in hospitals or research environments.
The application of sophisticated signal processing techniques in the clinic has shown to improve the accuracy and reliability of medical diagnoses. It is an exciting growing area, and this focus area educates the students in designing and implementing advanced processing techniques (single or multi-dimensional) and modelling (linear or nonlinear) of the acquired physiological signals for quantitative or objective analysis.
Courses are offered on all advanced signal processing techniques, and the curriculum provides a thorough understanding of the signal processing and modelling aspects on real-world examples and exercises. Often it includes making a mathematical model of the biological system and then devising a signal processing scheme based on this model.
Projects in this focus area typically include a theoretical part, an implementation part, and testing of the approach in a clinical environment on real patient data.
Biomedical instrumentation covers all the medical equipment used with patients for the diagnosing and treatment of diseases. In principle, this is both equipment inside the patient such as pace makers, equipment near the patient such as fingertip measurement of blood oxygen saturation and equipment used remotely to analyze samples from the patient such as analysis of blood samples. Roughly speaking, it covers all the aspects of developing, operating, maintaining and repairing medical equipment.
Biomedical instrumentation can involve electrical, mechanical, chemical, and optical techniques as well as many other techniques and is thus very multidisciplinary. The most central course in biomedical instrumentation is 31598 Engineering World Health Summer School in Biomedical Instrumentation (5 ECTS, June). This course also serves as a pre-requisite course for students planning to participate in Engineering World Health activities at hospitals in developing countries.
Recommended foundation courses include: