A new wearable multichannel magnetocardiogram system with a SERF atomic magnetometer array

Abstract

In this study, a wearable multichannel human magnetocardiogram (MCG) system based on a spin exchange relaxation-free regime (SERF) magnetometer array is developed. The MCG system consists of a magnetically shielded device, a wearable SERF magnetometer array, and a computer for data acquisition and processing. Multichannel MCG signals from a healthy human are successfully recorded simultaneously. Independent component analysis (ICA) and empirical mode decomposition (EMD) are used to denoise MCG data. MCG imaging is realized to visualize the magnetic and current distribution around the heart. The validity of the MCG signals detected by the system is verified by electrocardiogram (ECG) signals obtained at the same position, and similar features and intervals of cardiac signal waveform appear on both MCG and ECG. Experiments show that our wearable MCG system is reliable for detecting MCG signals and can provide cardiac electromagnetic activity imaging.