Development of FPGA-based three-lead electrocardiography

Vital sign measurement devices are medical devices commonly used to measure the health condition of a patient. A common method to determine heart condition is by observing cardiac electrical signal to find out any abnormalities on heart. In this paper, we report the design of a non-invasive medical instrumentation that can display the recorded electrocardiogram signal and measure heart rate. The cardiac electrical activities were recorded with the usage of three-electrode Einthoven Standard Lead. The FPGA Spartan-3 was used for signal processing as it can be programmed according to desired design. As the result, the PQRST electrocardiogram signal was successfully acquired and displayed on monitor as well as the heartbeat rate. The heart beat rate has the average error less than 2% when compared to manual counting.