Developing wireless ECG device using Bluetooth protocol for interfacing with Android based applications

Abstract

The current project involves the development of a wireless ECG recorder and an android application that can be integrated smoothly for use by health-conscious people or cardiac patients and clinicians as well for self-monitoring and feedback respectively. Briefly, the hardware as well as software for a wireless ECG device were designed and developed that was integrated with Android based application to display and records the user's ECG signal. The hardware incorporated microcontroller, MSP-430 that detected the cardiac signal and performed analog to digital conversion (ADC), digital filtering, QRS complex extraction and heart rate calculation using specific algorithms. During validation, the prototype successfully recorded the cardiac electric signals originated by subject’s heart with distinct QRS complex and T peaks. However, a distinct P wave was lacking. Further, the signal was rectified and the background noise was amplified followed by amplifying the signal to a tractable level. Next, the signal was communicated to an android device using Bluetooth protocol by HC-05 Bluetooth module. The signal was successfully displayed graphically, and the data was stored after being digitalized for future referencing and processing using advanced algorithms. The developed prototype is a robust, accurate and low-cost ECG recorder with wireless signal transmission to android device. The hardware incorporates distinct filter and amplification system to eliminate artifact from active movement. The use of adaptive filter is proposed for possible future improvement, with the main goal being to build the amplification and filter system which communicates with an Android smartphone application.