Design of a temporay external artificial pacemaker simulator

Aging or heart disease can damage the natural ability of setting correct pace in human heartbeat. In such situations, an electronic device known as pacemaker generator is used to regulate heart signals. The microprocessor of a pacemaker is programmed to detect the heart signal attributes, detect the malfunction of the heart pacing, and produce the required pacing signal. While the technology is limited to few major manufacturers, mechatronic design of a pacemaker is essential for research or optimization purposes. In this article, a system is proposed for simulation of a pacing function, aiming at bradycardia pacing. The algorithm is implemented in Arduino microcontrollers, using PC and MATLAB programming. Simulation results showed that the algorithm is able to detect different attributes of a typical heart signal, described by P, R, T waves, the heartbeat (HB), and produce pacing pulses for slow HBs.