Active Electrodes for Wearable EEG Acquisition: Review and Electronics Design Methodology

Active electrodes (AEs), i.e., electrodes with built-in readout circuitry, are increasingly being implemented in wearable healthcare and lifestyle applications due to AEs' robustness to environmental interference. An AE locally amplifies and buffers μV-level EEG signals before driving any cabling. The low output impedance of an AE mitigates cable motion artifacts, thus enabling the use of high-impedance dry electrodes for greater user comfort. However, developing a wearable EEG system, with medical grade signal quality on noise, electrode offset tolerance, common-mode rejection ratio, input impedance, and power dissipation, remains a challenging task. This paper reviews state-of-the-art bio-amplifier architectures and low-power analog circuits design techniques intended for wearable EEG acquisition, with a special focus on an AE system interfaced with dry electrodes.