QUASAR’s participation in prior DoD and DARPA programs has produced revolutionary new dry sensor technology for bioelectric measurements through hair, off the skin, and even through clothing.

• Dry sensor: QUASAR’s sensors are easy to use and produce high fidelity signals without skin preparation and gels. The lack of gels facilitates maintenance of contact, enables long-term wear without skin irritation, and leaves no messy residue.

• Low Noise: Patented shielding and circuit design, and common-mode cancellation technology reduce electrostatic noise and motion artifacts enabling quality ambulatory data collection in electronically noisy environments.

• This proprietary sensing technology has been optimized for EEG, ECG, EMG, and EOG applications.

Contact Sensors


Hybrid resistive-capacitive sensors enables the omission of conductive gels during EEG, ECG, EMG, or EOG recordings.
Through-hair pin design facilitates operation on most hair types.
These dry sensors have been tested in a variety of contexts and proven to record EEG and ECG signals with fidelity comparable to wet electrodes.

• Non-Contact Sensors

  
  QUASAR has also developed non-contact capacitive sensors that record ECG, EMG, or EOG signal through clothes.
  These sensors have been integrated into various garments, including T-shirts and body-armor, as well as furniture such as chairs and beds.

  • Development of a Heart Monitoring System using Standoff Electric Field Sensors

  
  Under Phase II SBIR funding, a new class of non-contact through-clothes ECG monitoring systems was developed, based upon QUASAR’s innovative capacitive bioelectrode technology. QUASAR constructed a prototype ECG acquisition system and acquired data on subjects in various states of ambulation to define the system’s parameters. The data shown below were taken on a subject who was walking

Integrated EEG-fNIR Sensors


Under a U.S. Army funded Phase I SBIR project was to develop an integrated EEG-fNIR measurement system for in-field collection of TBI data. The goal of the project was to establish an initial approach for producing a system for simultaneous EEG and fNIRs measurements. We designed and built a proof-of-concept prototype of the integrated sensor. We also conceived a prototype headset for mounting. Effort on the project identified and established mitigation strategies for project technical risk, and defined a strategy for the coding architecture and user interface.

Other Sensors

QUASAR often integrates additional sensor modalities into its systems. Sensors already implemented include:
• Temperature sensors
• 3-D accelerometers

Wearable Dry Sensor Technology

In order to use the sensors and algorithms in real-world applications, QUASAR has developed numerous solutions to comfortably attaching sensors to human subjects, including a headset (DSI 10/20) to hold 21 EEG sensors at locations according to the 10/20 International System, and a 9-sensor headset structure was integrated into a standard Army helmet for ambulatory EEG acquisition. ECG and EMG sensors have also been integrated into various garments, including T-shirts and body-armor.
QUASAR’s suite of wearable physiological sensors was developed under funding from various government and privately projects, including the following:
• Remote Neurological Measurement and Sensing
• Responder Wireless Physiological Monitoring Device
• System Integration Tests of Through-Clothing Bioelectrodes with the Land Warrior System