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Wireless Blood Pressure Monitoring System

Thesis · January 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2104.5609

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Fatih Alisinanoglu
Hasan Kalyoncu University
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 Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor
Fatih ALISINANOGLU
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Hasan Kalyoncu University
27060 Gaziantep, Turkey
fatih.alisinanoglu@std.hku.edu.tr

Abstract - High Blood Pressure, is a serious condition that

can cause to damage heart and other organs and increase the
risk of heart attack and stroke. It would be helpful to have a
convenient way to automatically take many blood pressure
readings throughout the day and over time to see how often
one’s blood pressure is high. This paper, documents the cre-
ation of a Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor.

Index Terms - Blood pressure, ECG, sensor, wireless

I. INTRODUCTION
Many types of blood pressure monitors exist, including
both wrist monitors and the more common arm monitors.
The arm band monitors are unusual because typically are
larger, require a separate module attached to the arm band.
Arm band monitors are less convenient than the wrist moni-
tors. The wrist monitors are self-contained, they have no Fig. 1 Medical Sensors Interfacing with Arduino board

separate module or any other attachments.

Wireless Blood Pressure Monitors take readings contin-
uously to collect many readings from patients to see how
their blood pressure varies throughout the day. It’s well
known that people’s blood pressure varies a lot during the
day but it’s debatable what to do about it. If someone’s
blood pressure is normal when taken at the home in the
morning but then reads high when taken later during the
same day in a doctor’s office.What can be the important
point in this case? A Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor pro-
vides many readings throughout the day and would give a
better and a true picture of patients’ blood pressure. Such a
device could also be a research tool to help better understand
the effects of blood pressure on the body.
This paper discusses the aspects of collecting of the
blood pressure datas and then gathered data can be wireless-
ly sent using any of the connection options like Bluetooth,
802.15.4, ZigBee, Wi-FI, 3G and GPRS depending on the
application.
In another way data can be sent to the Cloud in order to
perform permanent storage or monitoring in real time by
sending the data directly to a laptop or Smartphone. iPhone
and Android applications can be used in order to easily see
the patient’s information. This system is expected to monitor
patient’s blood pressures for doctor to monitor the patient’s
condition sitting in his own office without being physically
present near to the patient’s bed. More convenient and accu-
rate results will be analysed by the doctor for diagnosing a
medical problem of the patient which resulted as abnormal
blood pressure readings.
II. THE OVERALL FRAMEWORK OF THE WIRELESS BLOOD
PRESSURE MONITOR
The Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor system is based
on an Arduino UNO board, e-Health Sensor Platform, Blood
Pressure Sensor and ZigBee wireless sensor network tech-
nology, which combines blood pressure data and the collect-
ed data can be transmitted, stored, analysed and displayed by
the system.
The system’s main design specification is to be a por-
table real time embedded system that capture the blood pres-
sure information and utilise wireless capabilities to transfer
the measured data. The measured data will be wirelessly
transmitted to mobile or any other ways. The hardware-
software co-design methodology will be used to implement
the system and the selected components.
III. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
The main architecture of the system can be implement-
ed to achieve various applications. Our system’s prototype is
implemented as shown in Figure 1 which shows the system
architecture with the main interfaces.There are various types
of medical sensors can be used by the Arduino Sensor Plat-
form. These sensors are: SPO2, airflow (breathing), body
temperature, ECG, glucometer, galvanic skin response, pa-
tient position, muscle/electromyography sensor (EMG) etc.
The main purpose of this project is monitoring blood pres-
sure wirelessly so other medical sensors can be used arbi-
trarily depending on the future work of the project.
 B. e-Health Sensor Platform v2
The e-Health Sensor Platform has been designed by
Cooking Hacks [1] in order to help researchers, developers
and artists to measure biometric sensor data for experimenta-
tion, fun and test purposes. This shield provides a cheap and
open alternative solution compared with the proprietary and
price prohibitive medical market alternatives. However, as
the platform does not have medical certifications, it can not
be used to monitor critical patients who need accurate moni-
toring or those conditions must be accurately measured for
an ulterior professional diagnosis.
The e-Health Sensor Platform as shown in Figure 3,
allows Arduino and Raspberry Pi users to perform biometric
and medical applications where body monitoring is needed
by using 9 different sensors. This information can be used to
monitor in real time the state of a patient or to get sensitive
data in order to be subsequently analysed for medical diag-
nosis.
Fig. 2 Blood Pressure Sensor Interfacing with e-Health Sensor Shield

A. Blood Pressure
Blood pressure is the pressure of the blood in the arter-
ies as it is pumped around the body by heart. When your
heart beats, it contracts and pushes blood through the arter-
ies to the rest of your body. This force creates pressure on
the arteries.Blood pressure is recorded as two numbers—the
systolic pressure(as the heart beats) over the diastolic pres-
sure(as the heart relaxes between beats).
There are emerging techniques to take blood pressure
readings without the use of artery constriction but such
methods are not commercially available. Inflating the cuff
automatically requires a pump and the development of algo-
rithms and circuitry to control the pump. Logic must be
written to determine readings based on the release of pres-
sure in the cuff. For these and several other problems in-
volved building a pressure monitor from the beginning is
Fig. 3 e-Health Sensor Platform
beyond the scope of the project.The hope was that one or
more existing blood pressure monitors on the market would
The shield has various input and outputs for connecting
have a simple interface that would allow programmatic con-
different medical sensors as described above, also a graphic
trol and access to unit’s memory, perhaps via USB cable.
LCD can be used by the shield. Shield also compatible with
Unfortunately there are no such monitors on the market.
all UART devices.
The most suitable and feasible solution for building a
Expanding the scope of the project is possible with us-
prototype is to use the Blood Pressure Sensor (Sphygmo-
ing e-Health Sensor Shield, in this case using another med-
manometer) as shown in Figure 2 which designed by Cook-
ical sensor can be a good approach on the grown of the
ing Hacks [1]
project.
The Blood Pressure Sensor has been designed for auto-
An Electrocardiogram (ECG) Monitoring option will be
matic measurements of systolic, diastolic blood pressures
a good point for the development of the project, because of
with time and date. Sensor has a large LCD screen with
that reason, besides the blood pressure sensor, an electrocar-
LED backlight, also a touch pad key is attached to the blood
diogram (ECG) Sensor will be considered in the system ar-
pressure sensor. 80 measurement results with with time and
chitecture of the project for the future work.
date can be stored in the device memory. Blood Pressure
Sensor is designed as fully compatible with Arduino board.
C. Electrocardiogram (ECG)
Blood Pressure Sensor and communication modules use
The electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) is a diagnostic
UART port for transmission of the data each other.
tool that is routinely used to assess the electrical and muscu-
The Blood Pressure Sensor only works with e-Health
lar functions of the heart.
Sensor Shield V2 which designed by Cooking Hacks [1].
The Electrocardiogram Sensor (ECG) has grown to be
Blood Pressure Sensor and Arduino interface each other via
one of the most commonly used medical tests in modern
e-Health Sensor Shield, also as mentioned before other types
medicine. Its utility in the diagnosis of a myriad of cardiac
of medical sensors can be added to the system for expanding
pathologies ranging from myocardial schema and infraction
the scope of the project.
to syncope and palpitations has been invaluable to clinicians.
 Fig. 4 Electrocardiogram (ECG) Sensor attached to e-Health Sensor Platform
What is measured or can be detected on the ECG?
The orientation of the heart (how it is placed) in the
chest cavity.
Evidence of increased thickness (hypertrophy) of the
heart muscle.
Evidence of damage to the various parts of the heart
muscle.
Evidence of the acutely impaired blood flow to the heart
muscle.
Patterns of abnormal electric activity that may predis-
pose the patient to abnormal cardiac rhythm disturbances.
The underlying rate and rhythm mechanism of the heart.
The accuracy of the ECG depends on the condition be-
ing tested. A heart problem may not always show up on the
ECG. Some heart conditions never produce any specific
ECG changes. ECG leads are attached to the body while the
patient lies flat on a bed or table.
The Electrocardiogram (ECG) Sensor as shown in Fig-
ure 4 has been designed by Cooking Hacks [1] which is ful-
ly compatible with e-Health Sensor Platform. The electro-
cardiogram has 3 leads these are positive negative and neu-
tral as shown in Figure 4, these leads will be connected to
the electrodes and then placed on the patient’s body.
D. Arduino UNO Board
The Arduino as shown in Figure 5 is a micro controller
board based on the ATmega328. It has 14 digital input/out-
puts pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 ana-
log inputs, a 16 MHz ceramic resonator, a USB connection,
a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains
everything needed to support the micro controller; simply
connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a
AC-to-DC adapter or battery.
The Arduino enables electronic process in multidisci-
plinary projects to be more accessible [2].The Arduino con-
nectors allow to CPU board to be connected a wide variety
of interchangeable add-on modules known as shields. XBee
Shield enables an XBee module to be connected to the Ar-
duino boards. e-Health Sensor Shield allows medical sensors
to be connected to the Arduino board as described previous
parts of the paper.
The Arduino Uno has a number of facilities for commu-
nicating with a computer, another Arduino, or other micro
controllers. The ATmega328 provides UART TTL (5V) seri-
al communication, which is available on digital pins 0 and 1
of the board.
Fig. 5 Arduino UNO Board
E. Arduino micro-controller software
The Arduino IDE is a cross-platform application written
in Java. It is derived from the IDE for the Processing
programming language and the Wiring project. The Arduino
software consists of a standard programming language com-
piler and the boot-loader which runs on the board. The Ar-
duino hardware can be programmed using a specific pro-
gramming language which is similar to C++. It makes pro-
gramming micro-controller much easier. It can transmit data
by writing them onto the serial port using a simple serial
communication command with need for synchronisation,
initialisation and using interrupts. The Arduino software is
free and open-source. It enormously reduces the cost of mi-
cro controller programming.
F. Xbee Radio
The Xbee modules supports the unique needs of low-
cost, low-power wireless sensor networks. The modules re-
quire minimal power, provide reliable delivery of data, oper-
ate within the 2.4 Ghz frequency band are compatible with
analogue/digital inputs/outputs adapters.
The Xbee module as shown in Figure 6 interfaces with a
host device through a logic-level asynchronous serial port
[3]. ZigBee technology defines three different device types:
coordinator, router and end device.
The XBee shield as shown in Figure 6 allows an Ar-
duino board to communicate wirelessly using ZigBee. The
module can communicate up to 30 meter indoors.
!
Fig. 6 XBee Module attached to XBee Shield

Fig. 6 Bluetooth Module for Arduino
G. Bluetooth
Bluetooth Modules for Arduino as shown in Figure 7
are able to be plugged into the XBee Shield and get a serial
communication between the computer and an Arduino board
through Bluetooth protocol. Bluetooth module PRO for Ar-
duino supports Serial Port Profile (SPP) to exchange data
with other devices. This profile allows to create connections
to another device using the same profile (p2p connection). It
sends data to specified device.
In the development and the implementation of the
project , for wirelessly communication between Blood Pres-
sure Monitor and the management system, Bluetooth mod-
ules can be an alternative approach beside the XBee Mod-
ules.
H. GPRS/GSM
The GSM Quad band Module for Arduino (SIM900)
offers GPRS/GSM connection to Arduino board. The data
can send by SMS, make calls or create TCP and UDP sock-
ets in order to send the information to the Internet. HTTP
and FTP protocols are also available in order to send the
information to the cloud directly from Arduino.
The GPRS module SIM900 as shown in Figure 7, also
can be another alternative solution for wireless communica-
tion of the system.
Fig. 7 SIM900 GPRS/GSM Quadband Module for Arduino
IV. FUTURE WORK
This paper presents an Arduino/Xbee based wireless
blood pressure monitoring system. An Arduino micro-con-
troller will be used to process the data acquired by the sen-
sors and transmit to a remote computer or mobil device us-
ing Xbee network.
Practical tests will have been conducted to evaluate the
real time performance of the Wireless Blood Pressure Moni-
tor. In particular, an experiment will be carried out in which
one of the project developers will wear the system on his
body to perform real time monitoring during different time
periods.
Wireless connectivity options described on the previous
sections of the paper will be discussed and analysed, and
then the best wireless connection option will be chosen for
the system.
Further improvement now focuses on developing soft-
ware to analyse the data transmitted from the sensors.
V. CONCLUSION
This project is to develop a Wireless Blood Pressure
Monitoring System that is capable of measuring a vital sign
of health and communicating with the end device using cho-
sen wireless connectivity option. The identified results of the
study are expected to be acceptable measurements of the
blood pressure and other sensors’ datas.
The research work presented will establish a base for
such healthcare monitoring environments after real-time
implementation of the project
With this prototype system, more features can be added
such as functionalities to monitor Electrocardiogram (ECG)
graphs of a person.
With the further attachments of the different medical
sensors with remote monitoring system this project will have
an enormous application in the human health care field.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost , I have to thank my project adviser
Professor Dr. Celal KORASLI. Without his assistance and
dedicated involvement in every step throughout the process,
this paper would have never been accomplished. I would
like to thank to you very much for your support and under-
standing.
VII. REFERENCES
[1] “The open hardware division of Libelium ”, www.cooking-hacks.com
[2] “Arduino Hardware and Software”, www.arduino.cc
[3] “ZigBee Technology”, www.dii.com
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