AU2021100060A4 - A portable real time ecg monitoring system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a portable real time ECG monitoring system. The designed system is a portable device having a small analog front end circuit, a microcontroller unit (Arduino Mega2560), and display and storage unit. The proposed system acquires the signals using sensor/electrodes placed on the surface of the skin and display these real time signals on TFT LCD screen. The microcontroller programs also calculate and display heart rate. The device is equipped with a memory card that stores a person's ECG data for further analysis. The developed prototype is capable of acquiring and displaying the real time ECG data with continues monitoring of Heart rate of a person and the ECG signals can also be recorded in the memory card that can be visualized by a cardiologist. 1 108 104 0 1110

Description

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A PORTABLE REAL TIME ECG MONITORING SYSTEM

Technical field of invention:

[001] Present invention in general relates to the field of electronics and healthcare to provide a prototype ECG system which is a real time, readily accessible, easy to use, compact, efficient, less expensive, less power consuming with precise interpretations.

Background of the invention:

[002] According to annual report of world Health Organization in 2013, cardiovascular diseases are counted as one of four major reasons of 80% deaths in the world. Therefore enhanced and intelligent Heart disease diagnosis techniques are required. ECG is one of the Noninvasive methods commonly used in the world at hospitals and clinics as a pre investigation method for any heart problems. ECG records the electrical activity of Heart. ECG is very sensitive in nature and even if small amount of noise interferes with it, the characteristics of the signal changes. Accurate interpretation of an ECG is very important in medical diagnosis. Latest technologies are providing an automated ECG machines but cardiologists don't consider the automated diagnosis results because of some false negative '0 results are predicted by the machines and there are still some limitations due to lack of the advanced algorithms. Correct diagnosis is possible only if the acquired signals are noise free and holds the required information in it. Hence the motivation towards this work is to provide a prototype ECG system which is real time, easily available, simple to use, portable, reliable, having less cost, less power consuming with accurate interpretations.

[003] A lot of work in literature has been dedicated to designing an ECG machine. Designing of an ECG machines are based on ASIC, FPGA and Microcontrollers .Some are based on Computers; others are portable having LCD display or an Oscilloscope. Such approaches are discussed in, for example, Jose J.Segura-Juarez,David Cuesta-Frau,Luis Samblas-pena,and Mateo Aboy, IEEE transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 51,no.9,2004; El Mimouni El Hassan and Karim Mohammed, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology 2012; Pourus Mehta and sudheer KM, Medical Diagnostic methods 2013; Byungkook Jeon ,Jundong Lee and Jaehong Choi, International Journal of Smart

Home ,7,2, 2013; Kiran Kumar Jembula,Prof G. Srinivasulu, Dr.Prasad K.S International Journal of Engineering and Science ,3,2, 2013 ; Ali Mohammed Jobayer, Shishir Bordhan, Md Towhidul Islam, Nipu Kumar Das(ICEEICT),2015; Shivani Maski, Prof. S.S.Mungona, IRJET, 5, 4,2018;

[004] ECG (Electrocardiography) is the interpretation of electrical activity of a person's heart over a period of time. Currently cardiac healthcare has become the emergent field of research because of increasing number of deaths overall the world due to heart diseases. ECG or electrocardiogram is one of the important and convenient medical diagnostic methods for finding the abnormalities and examining the functionality of persons Heart. It is Noninvasive technique in which nothing is harmful and painless. Only the electrodes are attached to the external surface of the skin. It is the most crucial and inexpensive thus has become one of the most vital in the area of healthcare.

[005] From the above, it is clear that for use and application of ECG system where it is being used at almost all hospitals it is Therefore needed enhanced and intelligent Heart disease diagnosis techniques are required. ECG is one of the Noninvasive methods commonly used in the world at hospitals and clinics as a pre investigation method for any '0 heart problems. ECG records the electrical activity of Heart. ECG is very sensitive in nature and even if small amount of noise interferes with it, the characteristics of the signal changes. Accurate interpretation of an ECG is very important in medical diagnosis. Latest technologies are providing an automated ECG machines but cardiologists don't consider the automated diagnosis results because of some false negative results are predicted by the machines and there are still some limitations due to lack of the advanced algorithms. Correct diagnosis is possible only if the acquired signals are noise free and holds the required information in it. Hence the motivation towards this work is to provide a prototype ECG system which is real time, easily available, simple to use, portable, reliable, having less cost, less power consuming with accurate interpretations.

[006] There are ECG systems invented by inventors. A lot of work in literature has been dedicated to designing an ECG machine. Designing of an ECG machines are based on ASIC, FPGA and Microcontrollers .Some are based on Computers; others are portable having LCD display or an Oscilloscope such as - US 9,615,793 B2 This is a Continuous ECG monitoring system for ambulatory patients includes a small multi-electrode patch that adhesively attaches to the chest of a patient, US20130109946 This device is meant for Electrocardiographic monitoring system monitoring device provides, a personalized cardiac rhythm detection and heart rate monitoring device for rehabilitating patients recovering from heart disease management as well as individuals that are conscious of their health in weight management and cardiac fitness during exertional activities. The collected data may be stored in a central server for long-term data analysis , US20040073127 The present system includes a wireless ECG system with existing or conventional ECG monitors. The ECG system generally comprises a chest assembly, a body electronics unit, and a base station. The chest assembly connects to electrodes specifically located on a patient's body for detecting electrical signals from the patient's heart. The electrical signals are detected by the chest assembly-thus, providing up to a "7 lead" analysis of the heart US 9,615,793 B2 This is a continuous outpatient ECG monitoring system for ambulatory patients includes a small multi-electrode patch that adhesively attaches to the chest of a patient, US 7,610,085 B2 It is a simplified system for continuous ECG monitoring incorporates electrodes in a pulse oximeter finger probe and/or in a blood pressure cuff. The electrodes in the pulse oximeter and blood pressure cuff generate a continuous ECG tracing without the use of disposable electrodes connected to multiple electrical Wires in an ECG harness. In another embodiment, simplifed ECG monitoring system can act as a secondary ECG input to a system that uses a primary ECG '0 input as Well. Therefore there is need to provide a prototype ECG system which is real time, easily available, simple to use, portable, reliable, having less cost, less power consuming with accurate interpretations. Hence the present invention provides a portable device having a small analog front end circuit, a microcontroller unit (Arduino Mega2560), a display and storage unit. The proposed system acquires the signals using sensor/electrodes placed on the surface of the skin and display these real time signals on TFT LCD screen. The microcontroller programs also calculate and display heart rate. The device is equipped with a memory card that stores a person's ECG data that can be visualized by a cardiologist.

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Object of the invention:

[008] Primary object of this research work is to design an enhanced ECG monitoring system that will certainly overcome the limitations of existing ECG systems.

[009] Another object of the present invention is to provide a prototype ECG system which is Real time and provide live monitoring for maximum amount of time.

[0010] Eeasily accessible in rural areas and simple to be used at home and clinics.

[0011] portable or compact that one can carry it moreover it should have less cost so it can reachable to everyone.

[0012] The device should consume less power so it can work for long durations and also tries to provide with precise interpretations.

[0013] Such systems are required nowadays because of the increasing ratio of heart problems in every 1 out of 5 persons. These systems are supposed to provide early diagnosis that can be life saving.

[0014] Other objects, features and advantages will become apparent from detail description and appended claims to those skilled in art.

Summary of the invention:

[0015] The ECG monitoring system includes four basic Units namely an Analog front end unit, Microcontroller and processing unit, Display and Storage unit. each unit is having required components in it. The proposed ECG monitoring system is a 3 Electrodes portable microcontroller based device which acquires the ECG signals by placing three electrodes (102) on RA, LA and LL. The device consists of 4 major units, first is the AFE unit (104) which is a primary component used in acquisition and amplification of ECG signal second is the Microcontroller unit (106) which is the main backbone of the device all the processing and working of the system is programmed here next is the display unit(108) and storage unit(110) it consists of 3.5 inch touch screen which displays real time signals with its heart rate. The screen is having an "ON" button that starts recording of the signal in .CSV file format the signal is recorded for 30 seconds and stored in a Sd card which is attached with the screen. The stored signal can be visualized by a cardiologist.

Brief description of drawing:

[0016] This invention is described by way of example with reference to the following drawing where,

Figure 1 of sheet 1 shows the block diagram for the proposed system. Where, 102 denotes three electrodes on RA, LA and LL, 104 denotes AFE unit, 106 denotes Microcontroller unit, 108 denotes display unit, 110 denotes and storage unit,

[0017] In order that the manner in which the above-cited and other advantages and objects of the invention are obtained, a more particular description of the invention briefly described above will be referred, which are illustrated in the appended drawing. Understanding that these drawing depict only typical embodiment of the invention and therefore not to be considered limiting on its scope, the invention will be described with additional specificity and details through the use of the accompanying drawing.

Detailed description of the invention:

[0018] Present invention in general relates to the field of electronics and healthcare to provide a prototype ECG system which is a real time, easily available, simple to use, portable, reliable, having less cost, less power consuming with accurate interpretations.

[0019] In the preferred embodiment the main electronics circuit board contains The ECG monitoring system includes four basic Units namely an Analog front end unit, Microcontroller and processing unit, Display and Storage unit. each unit is having required components in it. An AFE (104) is the signal conditioning circuit that works with sensors. It consists of Electrodes(102), Instrumentation amplifier, High pass filter and low pass filter. The In-Amp takes input from the electrodes and outputs the amplified signal to a high pass filter, the output of high pass filter is given to low pass filter andfinal filtered output is taken from low pass filter and displayed on DSO. The circuit is supplied voltage through 9v batteries. The sensor or electrodes are attached to the person's hands and leg and given input to an instrumentation amplifier, which is responsible for amplifying the very low amplitude biopotentials and forwarding these to the filters for successful removal of the noises. The noises are nothing but the unwanted low and high frequency components which disturbs the actual signals. Here the challenging task is for both the In-amp and filters to work in synchronous manner.

[0020] The next unit is Microcontroller and processing unit(106). These are considered as the most important part of the ECG monitoring system. Once the data is accumulated, it has to be processed. The processing of this data is carried out by the micro controller. The processing steps may include serial port transfer of the data, read/write operation or other arithmetic operations. The purpose of the work is to make the device portable that requires an embedded controller to control the actions and features of a devices altogether. For this work we have used Arduino mega microcontroller board for its ease of availability, use, flexibility of working with more memory space and processing power. The use of Arduino also minimizes the components in a system like external ADC (analog to digital converter) is not required as Arduino mega itself consists of 10 bit ADC. Moreover working with Arduino is very simple and easy because of its programming software IDE available free of cost and provides flexibility of language for writing program in it with a basic knowledge of programming.

'0 [0021] The display unit(108) is used to analyze the acquired ECG waveform. The ECG waveform can be visualized on LCD or PC.Many embedded systems requires real time access to the output here in this work we are acquiring the real time ECG signals and these signals are to be displayed real time with no delay. The TFT LCD screen of 3.5 inch is used here to display the real time signals. The touch screen provides ease of access and flexibility. This screen is interfaced to Arduino mega using a shield which is just plugged in to Arduino board and also comes with the micro SD card slot for storage unit(110) of the real time signals. The display also shows the real time heart rate of a person..

Claims (5)

THE CLAIMS DEFINING THE INVENTION ARE AS FOLLOWS:

1. A system for Real time ECG monitoring consists of a main electronics board comprising of electronic components like instrumentation Amplifiers , analog filters , microcontroller board and portable display to implement desired functionality of Real time ECG monitoring System, characterized in that;

an Analog front end circuit (104) acquires the biopotential from person using the electrodes (102) and performs the necessary operations, Amplification of very low amplitude signals by giving a high gain and filtering of unwanted components by implementing filters;

a microcontroller unit (106) provided by the analog input from (104) and performs the analog to digital conversions and controlling the input to display it in real time on the display unit (108). Also performs functions for heart rate calculation. Operations on storage units (110) are also processed here;

a storage unit (110) when given the instruction by the display unit (108) starts recording the data up to the time limits given and performs the storage operation in CSV file format.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein; the AFE circuit performs the amplification with high gain and filters out the unwanted frequencies for accurate visualization of signals in real time also the circuits complexity reduced by using IN-amp.

3. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein; the Microcontroller unit (106) works for the real time access of AFE output. Use of Open source hardware and software provides benefits in working, availability of libraries functions and also best suitable in less cost.

4. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein; the display unit (108) easily interfaced with Microcontroller board (106) gives colored touch screen functionality, SD card expansion function and high resolution gives the better visualization of ECG signals in real time.

5. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein ; the Storage unit(110) advances the functionality of real time monitoring with providing recording of data for further processing. Or to send that data electronically for analysis to the physician.

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