A Portable Waterproof EEG Acquisition Device for Dolphins

Abstract

The acquisition and analysis of EEG signals of dolphins, a highly intelligent creature, has always been a focus of the research of bioelectric signals. Prevailing cable-connected devices cannot be adapted to data acquisition very well when dolphins are in motion. Therefore, this study designs a novel, light-weighted, and portable EEG acquisition device aimed at relatively unrestricted EEG acquisition. An embedded main control board and an acquisition board were designed, and all modules are encapsulated in a 162 × 94 × 60 mm3 waterproof device box, which can be tied to the dolphin’s body by a silicon belt. The acquisition device uses customized suction cups with embedded electrodes and adopts a Bluetooth module for wireless communication with the ground station. The sampled signals are written to the memory card on board when the Bluetooth communication is blocked. A limited experiment was designed to verify the effectiveness of the device functionality onshore and underwater. However, more rigorous long-term tests on dolphins in various states with our device are expected in future to further prove its capability and study the movement-related artifacts.