Continuous heart rate monitoring system as an IoT edge device

Detection of atrial fibrillation is done by checking the variations in the period of the heart rate, if a patient has atrial fibrillation then the period between each heart beat will vary. A light-based sensor can be used to detect these variations in heart rate; this is done by using Photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor which is non-invasive. The sensor consists of a LED with a photodetector and is able to detect the variations in blood volume or blood flow in the body and directly correlates to heart rate. The detected signal needs to be amplified and filtered as the signal contains a lot of high frequency noise as well as low frequency motion artifacts. The benefits of compact low-cost Wi-Fi module can be harnessed to develop a wireless continuous heart rate monitoring system enhancing possibility of atrial fibrillation detection.