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Design of Advanced Digital Heartbeat Monitor using Basic Electronic

Components

Conference Paper · November 2016

DOI: 10.1109/IEMCON.2016.7746333

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 Design of Advanced Digital Heartbeat Monitor using
Basic Electronic Components

Souvik Sinha, Shankha Mukherjee, Gautam Ghosh

Tamal Mukhopadhyay, Subhadeep Pal, Department of Electronics and Communication
Subhadip Mandal Engineering
Department of Electronics and Communication Institute of Engineering and Management(IEM)
Engineering Kolkata, India
Institute of Engineering and Management gautam.ghosh@iemcal.com
Kolkata, India
souviksinha36@yahoo.in , shankhasscs13@gmail.com,
tamalmukhopadhyay416@gmail.com

Abstract - This paper illustrates the design of an efficient, stable,
accurate and cheap digital heartbeat monitor which accepts the
mechanical heartbeat pulses as input, converts them into the
electrical form, amplifies them and provides the necessary output
on a 7 segment display following a basic logic algorithm. The
reading which is obtained in the seven segments is made error free
by using suitable cascading flip flop mechanism. An accurate result
is thus obtained.
With the help of this technology, heart beat can be measured in
a cost effective way and via further improvements, the reading
can be forwarded to the hospital authority.
TABLE I
VARIATION OF HEARTBEAT READINGS (BPM) OF PEOPLE OF
DIFFERENT AGES

Keywords – Sallen-Key Filter, Sensor, Instrumentation Amplifier,

Flip Flop, Seven Segment Display Age 18- 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 Abov
25 e 65
I. INTRODUCTION Athlet 49-55 49-54 50-56 50-57 51-56 50-55
e

T
he heart rate is the speed of the heart that is measured in Excelle 56-61 55-61 57-62 58-63 57-61 55-61
terms of number of contractions per minute generally nt
referred to as beats per minute(bpm). This is generally Good 62-65 62-65 63-66 64-67 62-67 62-65
dependant on the physiological activities of the human body Above 66-69 66-70 67-70 68-71 68-71 66-69
Averag
which includes the body’s ability to absorb oxygen and release
e
carbon dioxide. The bpm is largely dependent on age and Averag 70-73 71-74 71-75 72-76 72-75 70-73
physical activities and for an average healthy adult, it varies e
between 60-100 bpm. However, the heart rate of a fatal patient Below 74-81 75-81 76-82 77-83 76-81 74-79
can vary abruptly which may lead to serious medical issues and Averag
is a vital reason which it needs to be measured efficiently. e
Poor 82+ 82+ 83+ 84+ 82+60 80+
Problems in the cardiovascular systems are generally common
amongst people who are above the age of 60 and they require
quick medical attention for successful treatment.
 II. DESIGN PROCEDURE
` Figure 2: Diagram of TCP1000 heartbeat sensor
Figure 1: Block Diagram of the circuit modelled
The designed circuit can be split into several modules which are
explained below:-
A. Sensor Module
The sensor which has been used in the circuit is a TCRT1000
which consists of an Infra Red (IR) diode transmitter and a
photodiode receiver as shown in Figure 2. The finger is placed
between the sensor and receiver sections. Infra red light is
emitted from the IR Diode a part of which is absorbed by the
blood inside the veins and the other part is reflected and
absorbed by photodiode as an electrical signal. As the amount of
blood flowing through the wrist is directly proportional to the
voltage drop across the receiving photodiode, the voltage
received is directly dependant on the heartbeat rate and be used
to work with. The signal which was received can be considered
as an equivalent A.C. signal with an amplitude of 4mV and a
frequency of 1-1.7 Hz (for an average human adult).
B. Instrumentation Amplifier
Since the output of the sensor is very low (4mV approx),
amplification of the signal is necessary. To amplify the signal,
we have designed instrumentation amplifier using LM 354 chip
as shown in Figure 3. An instrumentation amplifier has low DC
offset, low drift, low noise, very high open loop gain, very high
common mode rejection ratio and very high input impedance.
These are mainly used to maintain high stability and provide
accuracy. The gain of the instrumentation amplifier is given by
Gain (G) =
Putting the values of R4=R3=100KΩ, we obtain,
Gain (G) =
Fixing the value of R1 = 50KΩ, the value of R2 only determines
the gain of the amplifier,
Gain (G) =
When R2 is chosen as 100Ω, we obtain gain to near about 1000.
Therefore, the output voltage
V0 = G (V2 – V1)
With V2 – V1=4mV, we obtain,
V0 = 1000(V2-V1)
V0 = 4V.
R2 is adjusted to make V0 = 5V
Therefore, the input analog voltage of the pulse which was in
the order of millivolts is now converted to the order of
considerable Volts so that it can be fed into the input terminals
of any digital device filter.
Figure 3: 3: Circuit Diagram of Instrumentation Amplifier
C. Filter
The voltage which is obtained from the output terminals of the
instrumentation amplifier is enough to proceed with the digital
display. However, amplification of the above signal leads to the
superimposition of high frequency unwanted noise signals with
the baseband signals which must be eliminated in order to
proceed for accurate counting of the heartbeat pulses. As
mentioned earlier, the human heart for an average adult person
contracts 60-100 times per minute, i.e. the frequency of heart
beat impulses lie roughly between 1 Hz-1.7 Hz. Therefore, all
signals which have frequency above 1.7 Hz are undesirable and
must be attenuated from the circuit.
For this reason, we use a second order active low pass Sallen-
Key Filter as shown in Figure 4 which provides for a more
steeper drop of signals with frequencies greater than the cut off
frequency(chosen to be 2 Hz in our case). Putting the values of
R1, R2, C1, C2 as
C1 =1.125 µF
C2 =462.5 nF
R1=R2 =10KΩ
If we feed use these values of the resistors and capacitors we
obtain
Fcutoff = 2 Hz.
Figure 4: Sallen-Key Filter circuit
D. Wave Shaper/ADC
The wave shaper module comprises of an ADC converter to
convert the low frequency analog signal into a digital pulse so
that it can be fed directly into the counter input terminals. We
can use a Schmidt trigger circuit with an operational amplifier to
this. The output of the Sallen-Key filter is fed into the input of
the Schmidt trigger which generates an equivalent square
waveform output maintaining the same frequency.
E. Pulse generator
A monostable multivibrator is used to generate a constant pulse
with the following duty cycles.
TON = 240 seconds
The trigger is turned on for 240 seconds. The purpose of
generating the constant pulse is that we desire to measure the
total number of beats per minute. This circuit is obtained by
using MM74C221. The T ON of multivibrator is set to 4 minutes
because the total number of pulses generated at the output of
ADC (including AND gate) is considered for 4 minutes duration
and then the ultimate number of pulses is divided by 4 using two
D Flip Flops cascaded in series to convert the total number of
pulses to number of pulses per minute. This is made to improve
the accuracy of the system so that if there is any slippage of
pulse by the sensor the system will take care of this by
considering the number of pulses for a sufficient larger duration
(here it is 4 minutes).The output of this monostable
multivibrator is fed to one of the input terminals of a two input
AND gate while the other input of the AND gate is connected to
the output of the low pass filter followed by a Schmitt trigger.
F. Counting and Display Module
The counter and display unit comprises of 3 decade counters
(for displaying 0 bpm to 999 bpm). Output of each decade
counter is connected to a latch which is in turn conncected to a
BCD to 7 segment display driver for connection to the seven
segment display unit. The input of the clock signal of the first
decade counter is the output of the AND gate.
III. WORKING OF PROPOSED HEARTBEAT MONITORING SYSTEM
The working procedure of the above circuit is illustrated in the
following steps:-
A. The finger is placed near the sensor which immediately
converts the mechanical heartbeat pulse into an
electrical A.C. signal
B. This analog signal is fed to the input terminals of the
instrumentation amplifier so that the signal strength is
amplified enough smoothing out of noise (if any )and
for further process.
C. The signal after getting amplified is passed through a
Sallen-Key Filter to eliminate the highest frequency
components.
seconds are obtained. This operation is done to increase
the accuracy of our system.
G. The output of the D Flip Flop is fed directly to the
input terminals of the Decade Counter and counting of
the pulses begins.
H. The complemented output of the monostable
multivibrator is passed to the control inputs of the latch
so that when the counting of the pulses in the counter
are in process, the latch is turned off.
I. After 240 seconds the monostable multivibrator
produces a zero output so the output of the AND gate
and the corresponding D Flip Flop is 0 and the
counting stops. The complemented output of the latch
is now 1 and the latch is activated which passes the
output of the DCUs to the driver of 7-segment display.
J. In this condition, the latch(which is activated) is
connected to the 7 segment display so that the total
number of pulses counted are displayed.
TABLE II
OVERALL WORKING OF THE CIRCUIT

D. The corresponding signal after getting amplified, is During 240 After 240
passed through an analog to digital converter circuit (a seconds of seconds of
Schmidt trigger circuit in our case) which converts the operation operation
Monostable 1 0
analog wave into a digital wave pulse so that counting
Output
of wave pulses becomes easier.
Counter ON OFF
Latch OFF ON
E. Now the output of the ADC is fed to the input Display OFF ON
terminals of an two input AND gate, the other input is
connected to the output of a monostable multivibrator.
The multivibrator is triggered when the finger is placed IV. CONCLUSION
over the senser. The output of the monostable
multivibrator is designed to to provide a 240 seconds The circuit topology so designed calculates the heartbeat signals
pulse. Therefore the output of the AND gate will be a in an efficient manner by counting the number of beats for four
series of pulses for 240 seconds durations (4 min) minutes duration then converting it to number of beats for one
corresponding to number of heart beats for 4 minutes minute duration to finally display the value of heart beat in bpm.
The use of Instrumentation Amplifier and Sallen Key Filter
F. The output of the AND gate is fed to the input enhances respectively the stability of the sensor and also
terminals of 2 D Flip Flops connected in cascade so improves the efficiency and accuracy of the system. The logic
that the total number of pulses gets divided by 4 and which is applied at the display unit caters for the conditional
total number of heartbeat pulses available for 240/4=60 flickering of the heart beat pulses and safely filters the noise
signals prohibiting them from superimposing upon the heartbeat
baseband signal.

V. FUTURE SCOPE

The system that we have designed counts the heartbeat pulses

using decade counters. Improvements can be made in this regard
using a basic 8051 microcontroller instead of the BCD counter.
Also the count generated can be transmitted in a wireless
medium to individual cellular phones so that doctors can have
quick access to a patient’s heart beat count.

REFERENCES

[1] Nisha Singh, Sr.Asst. Prof. Ravi Mishra, Microcontroller Based

Wireless Temperature And Heart Beat Read Out, IOSR Journal of
Engineering (IOSRJEN), e-ISSN: 2250-3021, p-ISSN: 2278-8719,
Vol. 3, Issue 1 (Jan. 2013), ||V5|| PP 01-06
[2] M.M. A. Hashem, Rushdi Shams, Md. Abdul Kader, and Md. Abu
Sayed, Design and Development of a Heart Rate Measuring Device
using Fingertip, Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Khulna
9203, Bangladesh, 2010
[3] Mohamed Fezari, Mounir Bousbia-Salah, and Mouldi Bedda,
“Microcontroller Based Heart Rate Monitor”, The International
Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 5, No. 4, 2008.suited
for short distance communication, and the transmission distance is
limited only about 10 meters, and then i can be suitable for in- patient
monitoring. The system is important to be applied to patient care
[4] Bandana Mallick, Ajit Kumar Patro, HEART RATE MONITORING
SYSTEM USING FINGER TIP THROUGH ARDUINO AND
PROCESSING SOFTWARE. International Journal of Science,
egineering and Technology Research (IJSETR), Volume 5, Issue 1,
January 2016
[5] Hashem et al, Design and Development of a Heart Rate Measuring
Device using Fingertip?, IEEE International Conference on
Computer and Communication Engineering (ICCCE), ISBN: 978-1-
4244-6235-3, 2010.

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