Transthoracic impedance to direct current discharge: effect of repeated countershocks.

The effect of repeated countershocks on transthoracic apparent impedance to direct current (dc) defibrillator discharges was studied. Repeated dc countershocks result in a progressive decrease in transthoracic apparent impedance that is dependent upon the time interval between countershocks. This decrease was significantly greater in the group of animals shocked at 3-min intervals compared to the groups shocked at 15-sec intervals (P less than 0.001) or at 1-min intervals (P less than 0.005). Since lowered impedance results in higher delivered current for the same energy setting on a defibrillator, this observation may help to explain the enhanced effectiveness of repeated countershocks in defibrillation. Plots of simultaneous current against voltage during transthoracic dc discharge revealed that the current lagged slightly behind voltage during the rising phase of the recording, but that current and voltage were nearly simultaneous during the falling phase. This effect appears to be similar to an ionization phenomenon in that the effective impedance asymptotically approaches a lower value with increasingly applied voltage. This might explain why transthoracic impedance is highest at low energy countershocks and decreases with higher energy countershock.     

Impedance to transthoracic direct current discharge: a model for testing interface material

An in vitro method for screening the relative impedance of gels has been developed. A nonconductive chamber was built with 1-cm-diameter electrodes placed 1 cm apart. This chamber is filled with electrode gel to be tested. The defibrillator used delivers a half-sinusoidal waveform. When the same stored energy is discharged by this defibrillator into increasing impedance, the resultant delivered current wave decreases while the voltage wave increases. Thus, with increasing impedance, the delivered volt-time interval increases. Twelve electrode gels were studied; 10 measurements were made on each gel. There is a marked variation in the impedance to direct current discharge of commercially available electrode gels. A large number of commercially available electrode gels are not suitable for use as the interface between the paddle electrodes and the chest wall during elective cardioversion and emergency defibrillation.     

Considerations in the development of the automatic implantable defibrillator.

A highly reliable ventricular fibrillation detector and a satisfactory electrode system for delivering defibrillating pulses to the heart play a central role in the development of an automatic implantable defibrillator suitable for clinical use. Among the four implanted electrode designs tested, the combination of an electrode placed in the superior vena cava with a conformal electrode on the apex of the heart provided satisfactory defibrillation thresholds with ease of implantation. A new sensing method is also described for which an electrogram derived from the defibrillating electrodes is used as input. A form of a density function is developed for a filtered version of the input, ventricular fibrillation being characterized by a density curve lacking a large peak occurring at a level corresponding to the baseline of the filtered signal. These ideas are being incorporated into the design of a prototype implantable defibrillator delivering pulses of 24 joules.     

The impedance of electrodes used for ventricular defibrillation.

This study has shown that the apparent impedance of both electrode-electrolyte interfaces is small at the current levels used for transchest ventricular defibrillation, making it clear that the appearent impedance appearing between the electrode terminals is largely that of the subject. In addition, it has been shown that for measurement of the impedance of the subject, with low-intensity sinusoidal current, the electrode-electrolyte impedance becomes negligible above 10 kHz and is only slightly affected by the magnitude of the current used to make the measurement.     

用于低能量除颤的除颤器设计

设计了用于低能量除颤的,可灵活调节放电脉冲宽度和准确测量实际放电能量的除颤器.该除颤器的放电波形为双相指数截尾波,通过人工设置,可释放1～3组双相指数截尾波;放电脉冲的宽度、各脉冲之间的时间间隔可人工灵活调节,最小步长为0.1 ms;可测量放电前后储能电容电压,再根据储能电容的容值准确地计算出实际放电能量.该除颤器在双相指数截尾波的基础上,通过调节放电脉冲的宽度、各脉冲之间的时间问隔及脉冲数量,优化放电波形,达到低能量除颤的目的.已在20余例低能量除颤的动物实验中应用,各项功能符合设计要求.     

Potassium efflux from myocardial cells induced by defibrillator shock

A transient, dose-dependent cardiac depression was produced by defibrillator shocks in an isolated, working canine heart preparation perfused with oxygenated arterial blood from a support dog. Accompanying this depression was an efflux of potassium (K+), forced out of the myocardial cells by the passage of defibrillating current. The transient increase in extracellular K+ concentration was recorded graphically in the venous outflow. It was found that 5-msec rectangular wave shocks, from three to ten times defibrillatory current threshold, released dose-related pulses of K+. It is concluded that because K+ is a myocardial depressant, at least part of the myocardial depression after defibrillation is caused by the release of K+ from the myocardial cells.     

The skin-effect in ferromagnetic electrodes for wire-EDM

In wire electrical discharge machining (wire-EDM) material is removed by the thermal energy of an electric spark that has been initiated between two electrodes (the wire and the workpiece), submerged in demineralised water. The use of high frequency current pulses for sparking leads to excellent machining performance, in terms of the work piece roughness, the material integrity of the cut and the material removal rate. To reach the highest frequencies, the wire-EDM generator mostly consists of a voltage source with an as low as possible internal inductance. The working current delivered to the spark and, hence, the material removal rate of the process depends on the total impedance of the electrical circuit. In this article the importance of the wire’s impedance will be shown. Due to the skin-effect, this impedance depends on the frequency of the current signal, especially for ferromagnetic wires, such as steel wire. Coatings will prove to be primordial to prevent the machining speed from dropping significantly.     

Influence of machining parameters on surface roughness in finish cut of WEDM

Surface roughness is significant to the finish cut of wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM). This paper describes the influence of the machining parameters (including pulse duration, discharge current, sustained pulse time, pulse interval time, polarity effect, material and dielectric) on surface roughness in the finish cut of WEDM. Experiments proved that the surface roughness can be improved by decreasing both pulse duration and discharge current. When the pulse energy per discharge is constant, short pulses and long pulses will result in the same surface roughness but dissimilar surface morphology and different material removal rates. The removal rate when a short pulse duration is used is much higher than when the pulse duration is long. Moreover, from the single discharge experiments, we found that a long pulse duration combined with a low peak value could not produce craters on the workpiece surface any more when the pulse energy was reduced to a certain value. However, the condition of short pulse duration with high peak value still could produce clear craters on the workpiece surface. This indicates that a short pulse duration combined with a high peak value can generate better surface roughness, which cannot be achieved with long pulses. In the study, it was also found that reversed polarity machining with the appropriate pulse energy can improve the machined surface roughness somewhat better compared with normal polarity in finish machining, but some copper from the wire electrode is accreted on the machined surface.     

用于电阻抗谱测量的脉冲式方法的研究

为了将电阻抗谱应用于复合材料构件的异常检测,针对被测对象电阻抗谱的测量,提出一种不同于传统扫频方式的脉冲式方法.采用软/硬件协同设计方法设计并实现基于现场可编程门阵列(Field programmable gate array,FPGA)的脉冲式检测系统.该系统能产生频率和脉宽可调的方波脉冲作为敏感电极的激励信号,基于FPGA芯片实现了一种能对瞬态响应电流曲线进行高速采集的步进采样方法,对采集到的电流曲线作进一步的处理以获得被测对象的电阻抗谱.为了验证脉冲式检测系统用于电阻抗谱测量的可行性和有效性,对Randles单元模型及双弛豫时间等效电路模型电阻抗谱的测量进行试验研究,并与理论计算得到的电阻抗谱进行了对比分析.初步的试验结果表明,脉冲式检测系统能有效地提取被测对象的电阻抗谱信息,所提出的方法用于测量被测对象的电阻抗谱是可行的和有效的.     

改进重复控制方法在并联型有源电力滤波器中的应用研究

有源电力滤波器的电流控制器设计直接影响电流谐波的补偿效果,采用比例积分PI控制跟踪交流信号时存在静差,而基于内模原理的重复控制在特定频率处有无穷大的增益,能够实现电流无静差跟踪,但系统动态响应速度慢。因此,该文提出将PI前馈控制与重复控制相结合的改进重复控制方法。该方法能够对电流进行无静差跟踪,且对系统谐波具有较好的抑制效果。通过Matlab/Simulink仿真软件和APF装置验证了系统对电流谐波具有较高的补偿精度且系统的动态性能较好。     

A sensing and actuating transducer for measuring point impedance to moment

In dynamic testing of structures, rotational frequency response functions have been less utilized than its linear counterparts because no suitable moment generators and sensors for measuring moments and rotational motions are available. In this paper, a method and a new transducer for measuring point rotational impedance of structure is reported. The transducer contains two PZT bimorph cantilevers symmetrically attached to a solid base which is affixed to the measuring point of test structure. When the bimorph cantilevers are excited to vibrate out of phase with ac power, the transducer exerts a sinusoidal moment to the structure. To let the transducer measure rotational impedance simultaneously, a transducer model called “transduction matrix” is exploited. The matrix quantitatively relates the input voltage and current and the output moment and rotational velocity. Once the matrix is identified via tests and/or numerical simulation, the mechanical impedance at the output port can be evaluated from the electrical impedance measured at the input port of the transducer. To validate, the rotational impedance at a point of a beam was detected by the transducer and calculated by a finite element model. Comparisons of the results show that the proposed transducer fulfills the aimed measurement accurately.     

Fast capacitive probe for electromagnetic pulse diagnostic

In this work, we report the study and the development of a capacitive probe which is suitable for getting fast and high voltage/current measurements. Due to the fact that fast pulses propagate generally in coaxial structures, the probe realized in this work was a capacitive divider with the divider electrode properly designed to assure the same characteristic impedance of the coaxial structure and the recombination time of the split signals during the propagation. It was a folded cylindrical ring of 1.4 cm long and 0.8 cm thick, which introduce a theoretical delay time of about 100 ps. Analyzing the behavior of the probe closed on 520 Omega, the voltage amplification resulted to be of (3.6+/-0.1) x 10(-4) and, as a consequence, the current attenuation factor of 56+/-1 AV. The response rise time was less than 320 ps, which was limited by oscilloscope bandwave. The capacitor probe can operate voltage measurements of the order of 100 kV.     

The analysis of subdivision measurement based on sinusoidal magnetic field model

A new space subdivision algorithm for the application object like linear motor whose magnetic flux density of magnetic field is sinusoidal was proposed. Space sinusoidal and cosine signals can be obtained by two sensors whose distance equals a quarter of magnetic polar pitch. By continuously doubling the measured signals’ frequency by sinusoidal and cosine operation, a set of orthogonal signals were produced whose equivalent pole pitch equals half of previous signals’. Using an electronic comparator to detect zero crossings, quadrature binary pulses may in turn be obtained from the frequency doubled signals and high-speed, high-precision displacement measurement can be achieved. By analyzing the signal’s signal to noise ratio, subdivision multiples’ constraints when zero crossings detection is available can be obtained. Experimental results showed the effectiveness of this subdivision method.     

基于ARM和Linux的AED控制系统设计

本文提出一种基于ARM9内核的嵌入式处理器S3C2440的自动体外除颤器控制系统的设计方案,详细介绍人体电阻抗测量系统设计和心率测量系统设计,以及基于嵌入式Linux操作系统的除颤控制软件设计,并描述软件的功能划分和控制策略的实现。该自动体外除颤控制系统具备心脏节律分析系统和电击咨询系统功能。     

磁性液体微压差传感器校准信号源的研究

提出了一种新颖的低频(0.1～100Hz)磁性液体正弦压力信号源,可用于微压差传感器校准实验,该信号源能够产生与激励电流频率相同的正弦微差压.利用单自由度受迫振动原理分析了输入电信号和输出压力信号之间的函数关系.采用有限元方法(FEM)分析了磁性液体正弦压力信号源内的磁场分布并计算了磁性液体所受磁场力.最后搭建了测试信号源性能的实验平台,并给出了实验结果,由此计算了系统的固有频率及阻尼比等特征参量.实验结果显示与理论分析一致.     

简易新型除颤器的设计

提出一种采用80C196KC单片机识别心室纤颤的设计思想，并采用低能量的双相脉冲技术实现去纤颤，突破了传统去纤颤器在技术与应用方面的局限性。     

Characterization of thermoelectric elements and devices by impedance spectroscopy

This article describes a new measurement technique that utilizes impedance spectroscopy for the characterization of thermoelectric materials and devices. Two circuit models were developed and used to help explain the impedance spectroscopy data using transmission line theory and a coupled electrothermal model. Two testing configurations have been investigated including one based on a sinusoidal source (ac lock-in technique) and one based on a pulsed wave source. Methods for reducing the measurement times for this technique are discussed. In addition, the influence of radiation losses on this measurement technique has also been analyzed to further understand the limitations of this technique at higher temperatures.     

微机械陀螺非线性特性的自由衰减振荡测量方法

针对微机械陀螺非线性特性的测量问题,研究了一种频率步进式正弦脉冲激励的自由衰减振荡测量方法。在谐振频率附近,采用步进式正弦脉冲序列作为激励信号,得到一组包含系统不同程度非线性动力学特征的自由振动响应信号。通过Hilbert变换提取自由振动信号的瞬时幅值和瞬时频率,计算得到骨架曲线簇,即可实现非线性动力学特性的实验测量。以Duffing系统为例,对不同信噪比自由振动响应信号进行了数值仿真,结果表明这种方法比FREEVIB方法具有更好的抗噪声性能。对一种环型振动微陀螺进行了实验测试,所得到的骨架曲线与传统扫频方式的测量结果一致。作为一种测试手段,这种方法同样可用于其他类型微机械谐振器动力学特性的实验测试。     

A Chicken Tissue Phantom for Studying an Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) System Suitable for Clinical Imaging

The study of practical phantoms is essential for assessing the reconstruction algorithms and instrumentation used in Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT). Responses of saline phantoms with insulator inhomogeneities differ from the real tissue phantoms in several aspects. Also, it is difficult to reconstruct the actual resistivity of the insulator inhomogeneity in a saline background because of their large resistivity difference. A practical biological phantom consisting of two different materials with low resistivity difference is more suitable for impedance imaging studies. In order to demonstrate this, a chicken tissue phantom was developed to study the resistivity imaging in EIT. A 16-electrode array was placed inside the phantom tank filled with chicken muscle tissue paste and chicken tissue. A 1 mA, 50 kHz sinusoidal current was injected at the phantom boundary and the boundary potentials are measured using opposite current injection protocol. Resistivity images were reconstructed from the boundary data using Electrical Impedance and Diffuse Optical Reconstruction Software (EIDORS) and the reconstruction was evaluated by calculating the contrast parameters of the images. Results show that the resistivity of the chicken fat is successfully reconstructed with a proper background resistivity. Impedance spectroscopic studies show that the chicken tissue phantom can be suitably used to evaluate a multifrequency EIT system.     

A Highly Stable Source of Current Pulses with an Adjustable Amplitude of up to 350 A for a Nonlinear Complex Load

The application of high-power semiconductor lasers for creating a population inversion in active gaseous media is an integral part of studies that are aimed at the achievement of a sufficient level of laser-radiation energy to initiate a thermonuclear reaction. The stability of the laser radiation and, thus, the repeatability of experimental results, depend on the stability of the parameters of current pulses for pumping laser-diode arrays with a pulse amplitude of up to several hundred amperes. The flow of current pulses with such an amplitude through a cable that connects the load to the output of the current-pulse source must not lead to the formation of voltage pulses of opposite polarity across the load, which can damage it. This can be prevented by correcting the current pulse edges. It is proposed to develop a source of current pulses with a high amplitude on the basis of several modules of fast linear current amplifiers with individual control loops, whose outputs are connected in parallel. It is established that a compensation-type current sensor on the basis of the Hall effect is operable at high frequencies and can be used in these modules, but it has pronounced resonance properties, which must be canceled. It is shown that analog driving pulses of each module can be formed using aperiodic chains with parameters that eliminate oscillatory processes in the load circuit. A dynamic model of a module of the linear current amplifier and the calculation relationships for the parameters of its components, which follow from this model, are presented. The experimental results that confirm stability of the parameters of the formed current pulses are presented.