Testbed Development for Non-invasive Intracranial Pressure Monitoring with a Microwave based Electromagnetic Skin Patch Sensor

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are a major public health problem worldwide where the symptoms can be anything from mild concussion to severe swelling of the brain tissue. As a result of TBI the intracranial pressure (ICP) can elevate to pathological levels with severe consequences such as hypoxia, ischemia and brain hemorrhage. TBI and the subsequent ICP increase could hence lead to disability or in worst cases death. Therefore to understand the severity of a head injury and the path regarding further treatments, monitoring of a patient's ICP is crucial in the intensive care units (ICU) environment. Invasive methods of ICP monitoring are at this present date the standard in ICU because of the accuracy when compared to non-invasive methods. All invasive ICP monitoring methods come with a risk to the patient and require the presence of a neurosurgeon. The thesis's objective was to develop a gradually increasing ICP testbed for a new non-invasive microwave based skin patch sensor. The aim with this project was to verify if a dependence in the resonance characteristic of the NASA SansEC microwave sensor with respect to ICP exists as suggested by previous works in a novel testbed and to provide a correlation model based on the testbed experiment. The developed testbed simulate increasing ICP by increasing volume of an artificial cerebro-spinal fluid (aCSF) liquid, a liquid emulating the CSF. The microwave sensor's resonance frequency is due to the permittivity changes caused by the change (increasing) in the fluid volume, which for this setup is directly correlated to the pressure change as well. Trials with different aCSF samples were made to ensure that the used aCSF in the testbed had the same dielectric properties as human CSF. The developed testbed had a simple structure made with several plastic containers of rectangular shape which were found to be well suited for the purpose of the experiment. For the microwave sensor trials an Fieldfox microwave analyzer was used and the sensor was evaluated around 1 - 4 GHz. The testbed pressure was increasing from 0 - 47 mmHg covering most useful ICP ranges. Larger pressures were also possible but limited by the height of the work room and the increase of complexity in the testbed design. The results from the trials showed a total resonance frequency shift of 76 MHz from 4 - 30 mmHg with an linear correlation of R2 = 0,91. The sensor measurements above 30 mmHg showed a saturation where the first principal frequencies were stable at 1,368 GHz. The linear relationship obtained for 4-30 mmHg is a reassurance that the Nasa SansEC sensor should be studied further. Future work should include new trials with modifications to the testbed setup and sensor design