IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends In Electronics Information Communication Technology, May 20-21, 2016, India

A Noninvasive Blood Pressure Monitoring System

Balamurugan. S, Ramasubba Reddy, Muthan S

Abstract—Blood pressure measurement serves as a pivot for
diagnosis of cardiovascular conditions and is done conventionally
using sphygmomanometer. However this method has the
limitations of producing only fewer readings in a given time and
causing patient discomfort. Hence there is a need for blood
pressure measurement procedure that can give more readings in
a given span of time and with utmost ease. We developed a low
cost noninvasive blood pressure measurement system which uses
the photoplethysmography technique. Reflective Infrared sensors
are used for the developed module. The time difference between
the blood flow in vein is used to find blood flow velocity, which is
eventually used to compute the Systolic blood pressure.
Keywords—Noninvasive BP measurement, Reflective
IR,Photoplethysmography,Continuous BP Monitoring.
I. INTRODUCTION
Blood pressure is the force exerted by the blood on the
walls of the blood vessels due to the contraction and relaxation
of the cardiac muscles. The blood pressure is one of the vital
body parameters and is used to indicate the various
cardiovascular conditions. Blood pressure is studied by two
distinct values corresponding to different physiological
conditions. One is called the Systolic blood pressure, which
corresponds to the highest value measured when the heart
contracts. The other value is called the Diastolic blood
pressure which is measured when the heart relaxes.
Blood pressure can be investigated either by invasive or
non-invasive methods. The blood pressure is invasively
measured using techniques like electronic manometry in
which a catheter is inserted into the particular blood vessel.
The major disadvantage of this technique is that it is infection
prone and can be really painful sometimes. The non-invasive
measurement of blood pressure is done using Korotkoff and
Oscillometry methods [1]. The low cost automated ultrasonic
blood pressure measurement systems available in the market
use the above strategy. Even though these non-invasive
procedures give accurate reading they are prone to give some
discomfort to the subject and are confined to a single point of
time only. The blood pressure is related to the Pulse Wave
Velocity (PWV). The PWV helps in monitoring the blood
pressure of the patient continuously with utmost ease. PWV
measured from ECG and PPG [3] is not an easy parameter to
measure at the clinical level.
This paper puts forward a new embedded dynamic system
which helps to calculate the blood pressure comfortably. This
Balamurugan, Biomedical Group, Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian
Institute of Technology, Chennai, India. (balamecomsys@gmail.com)
S, Ramasubba Reddy, Biomedical Group, Department of Applied Mechanics,
Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India. (rsreddy@iitm.ac.in)
Muthan. S, Professor, Dept. of Elec. & Comm. Engg.,Anna University,
Chennai, India. (muthan_s@annauniv.edu)
equipment is portable, low cost, energy efficient, safe and
reliable. It will also help to remotely monitor the blood
pressure even when the subject is doing exercise.
II. PROPOSED MODEL
A. Pulsatile Blood Flow
The pulsatile behavior of heart is due to the integrated
activities of Atrioventricular Node (AVN), Sino-Atrial Node
(SAN), Bundle of His, Purkinje fibers, Atrioventricular and
Semi-lunar valves. The SANin the right atrium initiates the
heart activity and acts as a natural pace maker. Impulses are
generated at a rate of 72 beats per minute. The generated
impulse travels through the right and left atria, which reaches
the AVN through the atrial valve. This action potential is then
carried to the ventricles by the Bundle of His. The contraction
of ventricles pushes the blood into the arteries. Therefore the
arterial blood pulse is generated due to fluctuation in heart
contraction that occurs at equal frequency as the heart rate.
B. Photoplethysmography
The tissue of human body is generally opaque but
transmission of light is seen at the skin and soft tissue levels.
Photoplethysmo graph acquires the pulsating blood flow of the
blood through the veins [4]. When light is incident, a part of
that is reflected, a part is absorbed and the remaining is
transmitted. The absorption rate of light is different at
different places of the body. As shown in the Fig.1 only blood
vessels show curved shapes. The shape changes are due to the
influence of the blood pulsation.
Fig 1: Optical property of blood
A symbolic PPG signal is shown in Fig. 2. The signal is
categorized into two components. The DC signal is obtained
from static elements of our body tissues namely epidermis,
dermis, hypodermis and bone. The second category contains
the AC signals which are from the dynamic blood vessels. The
walls of the blood vessel alter due to the pulsation of the heart.

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 IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends In Electronics Information Communication Technology, May 20-21, 2016, India

Fig 2: PPG signal with AC and DC component.
C. Stratergy Used
The experiment makes use of two reflective infrared sensors
which will be placed on the index finger. The first sensor will
be placed on the proximal phalanx near the metacarpal bone.
The second sensor is placed on the tip of the distal phalanx.
The distance between the sensors is fixed. Both the sensors are
connected to circuits that filter and amplify. The output of two
PPG signals with peak at different times is thus obtained. The
PPG signals are connected to a microcontroller. It is known
that the PPG signal from first sensor will lead the PPG from
second sensor. This is an important thing in blood pressure
measurement strategy proposed in this paper. The time
difference between the peaks of the PPG signal is called
Transit Time. From the distance between the sensor and
Transit Time, we can measure blood velocity which in turn
can be used to compute raw pressure using Bernoulli’s
equation. During calibration, the raw pressure data can be
compared with actual blood pressure data of the subjects and
by interpolation the blood pressure can be calculated.
III.
A. Circuit used
The signal from the IR sensor is given to two stage band
pass filter. The filter range is from 0.16Hz to 3Hz [5]. The
Circuit of the first sensor is set for a gain of 1000. The filter
circuit for the second IR sensor is same but is set to a lower
gain of 800. The reason to set a lower gain is because the
pulsating blood flow is better in the tip of the distal phalanx
than the proximal phalanx. The circuit is simulated using the
TINA TM from Texas Instruments. The circuit developed is
shown in Fig.3.
B. Setup
1) Microcontroller: The Arduino Nano is used for the
prototype. The Arduino Nano is a small, low cost user friendly
board based on Atmega328 microcontroller. The functionality
is same as Arduino Duemilanove, but in a different package.
The Arduino Nano is designed and produced by Gravitech. It
operates at 5V input and has 14 digital input/output pins and 8
analog input pins. Two of the analog pins are used for the
prototype. The output of the first IR sensor circuit is connected
to the analog pin 7 and the output of the second IR sensor
circuit is connected to the analog pin 4.
2)Algorithm: The sampling and baud rates of the Arduino
Nano is set to 9600 Hz. The microcontroller will be sensing
the analog pins 7 and 4. The timer will start once the peak is
detected in analog pin 7 i.e., from first IR sensor circuit. This
will continue till the peak is detected in analog pin 5 i.e, the
output of the second IR sensor cicruit. Once the peak is
obtained from both the sensors, the Transit Time will be
displayed in the serial monitor. The distance between the
sensors is fixed at 65mm. From the distance and the Transit
Time, the PWV is calculated which inturn helps in calculating
the raw pressure.
C. Prototype developed
The prototype was developed using EagleTM. It has a
HARDWARE DESIGN dimension of 68mm x 20mm and is shown in Fig. 4.

R5 680k R6 680k

Supply from Arduino Nano C2 100n R7 68k C4 100n

R4 6.8k
+

VS1 5
R1 1k

R2 1k

- -
C3 1u
Z1 1N2804

C1 1u
+ +
R8 68k

+ +
LED1 CQX35A

U1 OPA121E Outptut 1 (To Analog Pin7)

U2 OPA121E
R3 68k

Gaiin=1000
BW= 0.16 to 3Hz
TCRT 1000 D1 1N1183
D2 1N1183
R9 680k

R14 680k R15 680k

C6 100n R16 8.2k C8 100n

R13 6.8k
R10 1k

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Fig. 4: Blood pressure measuring Prototype

2 2
- -
C7 1u
Z2 1N2804

6 6
C5 1u
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3 + 3 +
D. Setup
+ +
LED2 CQX35A

R12 68k

U3 OPA121E Outptut 1 (To Analog Pin4)

U4 OPA121E
7

Gaiin=800

TCRT 1000
BW= 0.16 to 3Hz As said earlier the sensors are placed in such a way that
R18 680k
D3 1N1183
D4 1N1183
they are touching the tip of and proximal phalange of the
index finger. The sensor placement is shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 3: Blood pressure measuring Circuit

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 IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends In Electronics Information Communication Technology, May 20-21, 2016, India

V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we demonstrate a cost effective device for
Sensor 2 Sensor 1 noninvasive continuous blood pressure measurement using
photoplethysmography. It has no side effect on human body
while being used continuously. So the developed prototype is
quite reliable and preferable for continuous blood pressure
measurement. The result will be further compared with the
data obtained using existing sphygmomanometer to verify the
accuracy. The prototype will be made wireless and the data
will be monitored via an android application that has already
been developed. Furthermore, data will be collected from the
subjects while doing exercises like walking, running and tread
mill for testing the robustness of the developed system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Figure. 5. Sensor placement The project is funded by National Hub for Healthcare
Instrumentation and Development (NHHID) and is
IV. RESULTS
implemented in Biomedical Instrumentation and Signal
Sample PPG waveforms obtained using the prototype is Processing Lab, IIT Madras. So the authors would like to
shown in Fig. 6. The yellow waveform corresponds to PPG thank the people from both the places for the support rendered
signal sensed from proximal phalanx and the blue during the period of project implementation.
waveform corresponds to PPG signal sensed from the distal
phalanx. REFERENCES

[1] Y. Zhang, “Blood Pressure Devices,” IEEE/EMBS International

Summer School on Medical Devices and Biosensors (ISS-MD), 2004
[2] H. C. Bazzet, N. B. Dfeyer, “Measurement of pulse wave
velocity” [J]. Am. J. Physiol, 1922, 63:94-115..
[3] Parry Fung, Gay Dumont, Chris Mott, Mark Ansermino, “Continuous
Noninvasive Blood Pressure Measurement by Pulse Transit Time”. 26th
Annual International Conference IEEE/EMBS San Francisco,
September 1-5 2004.
[4] M. Maguire and T. Ward, “The Photoplethysmograph as an
instrument for physiological measurement,” Department of Electronic
Engineering, NUI Maynooth 2002.
[5] R. A. Gayakwad, “OP AMP and Linear Integrated Circuits and their
applications” 4th Edition.

Fig. 6: PPG Waveforms from Proximal (yellow) and Distal (blue)

Phalanges.

The Transit Time value is displayed in the serial

monitor of the Arduino TM software. It is shown in Fig. 6.

Fig 7: Arduino Serial Monitor Output

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