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If you have a question, or need help with this application note, contact the author at
kuk@cypress.com.
Blood pressure is one of the vital signs in the human body. It is measured using both invasive and non invasive
®
techniques. This application note demonstrates how to build a non invasive blood pressure monitor using the PSoC 1.
This design does not use any external active components to buffer, amplify, and filter the signal.
Contents Introduction
Introduction .......................................................................1 The non invasive method of monitoring blood pressure is
Operation Principle ............................................................2 widely used. It measures arterial systolic and diastolic
Block Diagram ...................................................................2 pressures of the human body. This device can also
measure heart rate. Table 1 describes various non invasive
Pressure Sensor...........................................................3 methods used in blood pressure monitors. This application
Amplifier .......................................................................3 note demonstrates how to use the PSoC to build an
Filter .............................................................................4 oscillometric blood pressure monitor.
Multiplexer and ADC ....................................................5 Table 1. Non Invasive Methods to Monitor Blood Pressure
Pneumatics...................................................................5
Display..........................................................................5 Method Non-invasive Principle
Working .............................................................................8
Project Description ............................................................8 Palpatory Palpable pulse when cuff pressure equals
Calibration .........................................................................8 (Riva-Rocci) systolic pressure (SP)
Summary ......................................................................... 10
Related Application Notes ............................................... 10 Auscultatory Based on sound waves generated from artery
Appendix A ...................................................................... 11
Segment LCD Glass Drive and Capacitive Sensing ... 11 Based on frequency difference between
Ultrasonic transmitted and reflected ultrasound wave
Worldwide Sales and Design Support ............................. 13 when passed through arteries
The oscillations start decreasing as the cuff pressure Figure 2 shows the block diagram of the blood pressure
monitor using PSoC. The device uses oscillometric method
reduces. The pressure at this point defines the minimal
blood pressure or diastolic blood pressure. to determine systolic and diastolic pressures. This system
includes the following blocks:
This method of measuring blood pressure is the oscillometric
method. It is often used in automatic blood pressure monitor
devices because of its excellent reliability. Figure 1 shows Pressure sensor
the variation of the artery oscillations as the cuff pressure is
reduced; it also shows the systolic and diastolic points.
Amplifier
Pressure Sensor
The pressure sensor for blood pressure monitoring system
should have the following characteristics:
b0
r 2 Equation 2
b2
a2
The gain at higher frequencies is equal to k . The
b2
The circuit in Figure 4 seems to be very simple.
Nevertheless, it is not easy to estimate the gain-frequency frequency response is shown in Figure 6.
characteristic of the whole amplifier due to frequency-
Figure 6. Frequency Response
dependent feedback. For analysis purposes, the amplifier
circuit should be slightly modified as shown in
Figure 5.
Figure 5. Amplifier Equivalent
Second Stage
High frequency components are removed using two pole low
pass filters implemented inside PSoC. This filter is
The resistor R1 is added, taking into account the AC signal
constructed using two switched capacitor blocks. The filter’s
source output resistance.PGA and AMPINV coupled in
cutoff is set at 50 Hz with a 0 dB gain.
Display
Using serial UART communication, the oscillometric pulses
are recorded with reference to pressure in cuff. The UART
transmitter runs at a baud rate of 19200. Oscillometric
pulses and pressure in cuff are recorded during deflation.
Figure 8 shows the Oscillometric Pulses and Pressure
Signal.
Note Medical demo daughter card is built for internal cypress demo and the same is not sold in cypress web.
Error! Reference source not found. shows the to interface with Port B of
schematics of blood pressure monitor daughter card built CY8CKIT-001 - Development Kit (DVK) with
CY8CKIT-008. P0x, P2x refers to the ports of PSoC1 in format so that you can directly import it to MS excel in
the DVK. The rolling pump and valve used are from koge *.csv format to plot graphs and find systolic and diastolic
and the part numbers are KPM12A and KSV04A-3C. pressures. A reference MS Excel sheet is attached this
Table 2 provides details of each net. project. The pressure in the cuff is calculated as follows.
Table 2. Net Details Amplified _ Transducer _ Voltage
Transducer Voltage =
Net name Details
Total _ DC _ Gain
20mV
P07_PGA_INPUT Input of high AC filter Slope = 0.4 mV/Kpa
50 Kpa
P01_ SENSOR- Negative input from pressure sensor
This is the transfer characteristic of sensor.
P03_I Amplified pressure sensor output
which acts as input to filter Transducer _ Voltage
Pr essure( Kpa)
P06_SENSOR+ Positive input from pressure sensor slope
P20_PUMP DRIVE PWM output to drive pump
760mmHg
P21_VALVE DRIVE PWM output to drive valve Pressure(mmHg) = Pressure(Kpa)
101.325 Kpa
P17_TX UART transmitter
Pressure(mmHg) = Amplified _ Transducer _ Voltage * 201.62
Working
The PWMs are set to 100% duty cycle for inflating the cuff. Calibration
When the pressure inside the cuff exceeds a threshold,
say 180 mmHg, the cuff is deflated. The systolic and The captured ADC counts of pressure signal can be
diastolic pressures are determined based on the filtered calibrated for the range 0-300 mmHG pressure range
(ADC) output. using a standard pressure meter. The process involves
plotting the ADC counts against pressure measured in
standard pressure meter in steps of 2-5 mmHG. The data
Project Description can be used to derive trend line equation in form of
polynomial with required order or the data can be used as
A project is attached with this application note. This project a lookup table. This is will compensate errors due to gain
helps to extract the pressure and oscillometric waveform and offset of the whole signal chain. The attached XL
from which you can find the BP by manual inspection or sheet contains the calibration data for the setup in
using your own algorithm. The project inflates the cuff to Figure 7.
180 mmHG. Then deflates the cuff at a constant rate and
simultaneously puts the pressure values and filtered
output in counts through UART in a comma separated
Appendix A
Segment LCD Glass Drive and Capacitive Sensing
Portable blood pressure monitors have custom LCD glasses and a few buttons for user input. Apart from monitoring blood
pressure, some parts in the PSoC family can drive LCD glasses directly without any driver and also do capacitive touch
sensing. Using these parts enable a greater reduction in total bill of materials. For details about LCD drive and capacitive
touch sensing refer application note AN56384.
Document History
®
Document Title: Blood Pressure Monitor with PSoC - AN58128
Document Number: 001-58128
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