Robert Prance’s team at University of Sussex in UK have discovered and created a unique electric potential sensor that is a perfect voltmeter and can measure a heart beat from nearly 3 feet away. It measures the spatial electrical potential or field. This has been difficult since the electrometers that measure voltage, electric charge or electrical potential were voltmeters that measured the voltage, when the electrical current was minimal, were inaccurate with several mechanical components. The only accurate meters were to measure changes in the magnetic field through so called Hall effect sensors. The unique thing about these new sensors are that they require no contact to sense the change in electric potential.
A company called Plessey has commercialized these Electric potential integrated circuits (EPIC) and the potential is enormous. They can be used in geographic surveying, device testing, electric potential microscopy , security and electrophysiology to sense the ECG, or EEG from a distance away. In a single mode, these devices can read electric potential but when deployed in arrays they can “see” through walls and could have enormous security implications.
This sensor now enables measurement of electrical signals from the human body passively, without any contact at home or the hospital that have large noisy electrical fields. There are two ways to do this, one, without contact or say contact with a finger to get a full ECG.
It is also possible that they will be able to monitor muscle movements, breathing or other electrical phenomenon. In addition since this device uses so little energy, it is possible that the companies will be able to power the device by harvesting it from some local source.
Since electric potential is very relevant in neuronal and cellular physiology, look out for in-vitro assays that use the sensor as probes or unique MRI applications.