Real time measurement of heart rate and it's variability

This paper presents an Arduino based real time heart rate recording system. It extends the benefit of portability and helps in detecting arrhythmia. This serves as a boon to people who faces regular heart problems and need to be kept in watch. In addition to detection of heart rate, this research is concerned with analyzing the variability in heart rate. It makes this approach suitable to estimate any abnormal heart conditions, and mental stress. A real time non-invasive system that uses pulse oximetry sensor showing pulses to measure the heart rate has been developed. Thus recorded photoplethysmograph (PPG) signal of 10 healthy subjects from their finger tip, and investigated their heart rate and its variability to detect arrhythmia has been recorded. The designed system stores the data to be analyzed repetitively and made available for comparison. The hardware design utilizes arduino platform simplifying the low level circuitry issues. The software part involves algorithm based on statistical mathematical models. Computational efficacy of this algorithm receives real time data and is processed to detect any abnormality in health care management.