Design and implementation of a portable fNIRS embedded system

We report on the design, development and operation of a portable, low cost, battery-operated, multi-channel, functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy embedded system, hosting up to 64 optical sources and 128 Silicon PhotoMultiplier optical detectors. The system is realized as a scalable architecture, whose elementary leaf consists of a probe board provided with 16 SiPMs, 4 couples of bi-color LED, and a temperature sensor, built on a flexible stand. The hardware structure is very versatile because it is possible to handle both the switching time of the LED and the acquisition of the photodetectors, via an ARM based microcontroller.