The EcoChip 2: An Autonomous Sensor Platform for Multimodal Bio-environmental Monitoring of the Northern Habitat

This paper presents the EcoChip 2, an autonomous multimodal bio-environmental sensor platform for the monitoring of microorganisms in the northern habitat. The EcoChip 2 prototype includes an array of 96-wells for the continuous monitoring of microbiological growth through a multichannel electrochemical impedance analyzer circuit. In addition, the platform includes luminosity, humidity, temperature sensors and monitoring. The developed electronic board uses an ultra-low-power microcontroller unit, a custom power management unit, a low-power wireless ISM-2.45 GHz transceiver, and a flash memory to accumulate and store the sensor data over extended monitoring periods. When a wireless base station is placed within the transmission range of the EcoChip 2, an embedded low-power wireless transceiver transmits the 96-wells impedance data and the other sensor data stored in the flash memory to the user interface. We present the measured performance of the prototype, along with laboratory test results of bacterial growth measurements inside the 96 wells in parallel. We show that the EcoChip 2 can successfully measure the impedances associated with bacterial growth over several hours using an excitation frequency of 2 kHz with power consumption of 114.6 mW under operating mode.