Researchers from the Pattern and Image Analysis Group at IT Lisboa, in partnership with a team from PLUX – Wireless Biosignals, S.A., have recently unveiled BITalino, a low-cost toolkit for rapid prototyping and hands-on activities involving multimodal biosignal data. Out-of-the-box, BITalino integrates easy-to-use software & hardware blocks with sensors for Electrocardiography (ECG), Electromyography (EMG), Electrodermal Activity (EDA), Accelerometry (ACC) and Light (LUX). It also includes a purpose-built MCU, Bluetooth and Power management.

The system has a parallel with Arduino, a popular Do-It-Yourself low-cost hardware platform. A relatively unexplored segment within the Arduino community is exactly the biomedical signals component, and it was here that the team saw a different opportunity.

BITalino can be assembled and customized by the user himself. Each individual block can be snapped off and combined to prototype anything; third-party and custom sensor designs can also be connected, given that BITalino is available in three form factors: Board, Plugged and Freestyle. Regardless of the form factor, BITalino enables the simultaneous acquisition of up to 6 analog input channels (4 @ 10-bit & 2 @ 6-bit) and 4 digital input at sampling rates of up to 1000Hz, and it also has 4 digital output channels (1-bit), that can be used for control and synchronization of third-party devices.

BITalino is getting a good news coverage, both at national and international levels, having been already featured in Exame Informática, I, Wired Italy, The Scientist Magazine, MedGadget and Health Tech Weekly, among other important media.

More information on the BITalino can be found at:
http://pia.lx.it.pt/?page_id=457
http://www.bitalino.com