Problems in Assessment of Novel Biopotential Front-End with Dry Electrode: A Brief Review

Developers of novel or improved front-end circuits for biopotential recordings using dry electrodes face the challenge of validating their design. Dry electrodes allow more user-friendly and pervasive patient-monitoring, but proof is required that new devices can perform biopotential recording with a quality at least comparable to existing medical devices. Aside from electrical safety requirement recommended by standards and concise circuit requirement, there is not yet a complete validation procedure able to demonstrate improved or even equivalent performance of the new devices. This short review discusses the validation procedures presented in recent, landmark literature and offers interesting issues and hints for a more complete assessment of novel biopotential front-end.