Biomedical Signals and Systems | Electrical Engineering

Improve healthcare by engineering hardware and software that prevent, diagnose, and treat sensory or motor dysfunction of the human body.

As the world is facing health crises, medical companies are on the lookout for new smart eHealth technologies that can solve daily challenges. Think of hospital patients who rely on wearable devices to transmit real-time data. How can you ensure the measurements are precise so that clinicians can apply the right medication or redefine their therapy? These devices also play a critical role in remote monitoring of rehabilitation patients. How can you collect, analyse, and store the necessary data, making optimal use of wireless systems? If you are passionate about engineering and signal and system analysis in the biomedical field, the specialisation in Biomedical Signals & Systems is the perfect fit for you.

What is Biomedical Signals & Systems?

In this specialisation, you will learn to solve one of the major challenges in the biomedical field: using and analysing signals from the human body for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. As the human body is a dynamic system much different from a mechanical or electrical device, which has clearly defined signals, recording and interpreting its signals is difficult. You will learn to get information from the system and analyse the signals using machine learning techniques and artificial intelligence approaches, among others. Consequently, you will be able to contribute to the biomedical engineering field in many ways. For example, you can develop a neural prosthesis to study brain function or use wearable devices to improve the treatment of remotely supervised patients.

Examples of courses you will follow within this specialisation:

What techniques for electrical and magnetic stimulation can you develop to activate nerves and muscles for therapeutic purposes? You will learn this and more in the course Bioelectromagnetics.
The course Advanced Techniques for Signal Analysis helps you understand, implement, and critically evaluate signal analysis techniques to study signals from (patho)physiological processes.
Build, analyse, and evaluate your own human physiological models, such as glucose regulation or human movement, to address a real-world clinical problem in the course Biological Control Systems.

Thanks to our collaboration with the Technical Medical Centre (TechMed) and clinical and industrial partners, you will benefit from an abundance of internship and research opportunities. What’s more, you will have access to high-tech labs for early-stage research and development and healthcare facilities with medical equipment. That way, you will get to contribute to novel research, such as developing advanced wearable sensing technologies for neurological and cardiovascular diseases or improving patients’ daily health monitoring using contactless sensing techniques.

What will you learn?

As a graduate of the Master's in Electrical Engineering with a specialisation in Biomedical Signals and Systems, you have acquired specific scientific knowledge, skills, and values that will help you in your future career.

Knowledge
After completing this Master’s specialisation, you have a fundamental understanding of the human body as a dynamic system;
- have an in-depth knowledge of medical conditions and applications where biomedical signals and systems play a crucial role, such as neurology, cardiology, and rehabilitation medicine;
- can apply clinical eHealth technologies to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of sensory and motor dysfunction of the human body.
Skills
After successfully finishing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- can come up with technological solutions for medical challenges, performing signal and system analyses;
- can extract meaningful insights from large datasets of biomedical signals;
- are able to analyse social consequences including ethics and safety of new developments in clinical (eHealth) technology;
Values
After completing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- have a deep sense of social responsibility and an intrinsic motivation to improve the quality of life of people with chronic diseases, rehabilitation patients, and the elderly;
- are aware of the social, ethical, and safety aspects of clinical (eHealth) technology and keep a critical attitude towards technological innovation;
- have developed your own unique identity as a researcher and value multidisciplinary approaches in developing and using technology for clinical (eHealth) applications.

WANT MORE INSIGHTS INTO THIS MASTER'S?

In this video, Ying Wang, Henry Slegers, and Ir. Juan Delgado Teran delve into the dynamic world of Biomedical Signals and Systems, sharing their experiences and the exciting opportunities for graduates at the intersection of engineering and healthcare.

Other Master’s

Is this specialisation not exactly what you are looking for? Maybe one of the other specialisations suits you better. You can also find out more about related master’s at the University of Twente:

Master’s in Biomedical Engineering, Specialisation in Physiological Signals & Systems
Master’s in Technical Medicine, Specialisation in Medical Sensing & Stimulation (Dutch-taught)

Courses & research