Smartphone based portable ECG monitoring system

As a result of rapid increase in ageing population, the need of new medical devices for better health care have arisen. Some devise focus on prevention, while others give importance for treating. Electrocardiograph (ECG) monitoring system plays a prime importance for diagnosing cardiac abnormalities. Developing countries such as India cannot afford the capital expenditure of the equipment and handling of the equipment as well is too complex. This work is based on detection of the heart's electrical activity with a heart rate monitoring sensor attached to an Arduino microcontroller. The system developed has the possibility of displaying ECG through mobile/desktop application using Bluetooth module. The system thus developed is a low budget ECG monitoring system, which could acquire ECG in real-time, reasonably priced, handy, battery powered and friendly to user. In the proposed system, software for desktop computers and an android application to visualize the ECG signal in mobile phones are developed. The system includes three electrodes, to acquire ECG signal from either of the limb leads (Lead I, II and II), or from augmented leads of the limb. These leads measure the bio-potential voltages produced at contact points and is transmitted to the heart rate monitoring sensor connected with Arduino to process it. This could further be sent to desktop/mobile device for plotting of ECG signal. Thus the developed low cost, portable ECG system aid as a healthcare monitoring system for observing the elderly people remotely