International Journal For Research & Development in Technology

Volume: 2, Issue: 1, JULY-2014 ISSN (Online):- 2349-3585

27

Copyright 2014- IJRDT www.ijrdt.org

Instant Elelectrocardiogram Monitoring in

Android Smart Phones

Chetan N Betageri 1, Dr V. Udayashankara

2

1 Research Student, Department of Biomedical Signal Processing and Instrumentation

2Professor and Head, I.T. Department

1 2 SJCE, Mysore, India

Abstract— ECG (electrocardiogram) is very essential

component for the doctors to diagnose the state of patient’s

cardiovascular system. In critical situations doctors may

need to examine ECG of patient instantly to take a firm and

better decision in their absence near patient. In this paper a

better way of instant ECG datatransfer, processing and

display is demonstrated. Here ECG is acquired using simple

3 electrode single lead configuration then it is digitized and

transmitted to Android smart phone in SMS message format.

This SMS data is a bundle of values representing digital

ECG. Acquired SMS data is fetched from inbox of the phone

and processed for calculation of heart rate and detection of

arrhythmia by Android application software. Then ECG is

displayed on phone screen along with conclusion of heart

rate and arrhythmia (if any).

IndexTerms—ECG, Instant ECG,Android ECG, Cardiac

monitoring

I. INTRODUCTION

Electrocardiogram is the waveform representing electrical

activity of the heart. This is acquired by connecting skin

impedance matching resistance electrodes to the surface arms

and chest. A set of appropriate electrode connection made for

acquiring single ECG waveform is called as lead. According

biomedical standards totally there are twelve leads for

complete analysis of activity of heart in various dimensions.

Today in hospitals and diagnostic centers twelve lead ECG

monitoring is being used worldwide. Even for treadmill test

and analysis of patient they implement twelve lead ECG

systems. So it is very comfortable to have ECG analysis at

hospitals and diagnostic centers.

Meanwhile if patient has to be monitored instantly and both

patient and doctor are at different places or patient is in critical

state away from hospital then there are different wireless ECG

monitoring systems which communicate between patient and

doctor to provide a better environment for ECG analysis. But

the conventional wireless ECG monitoring systems dependent

on short range networks such as Wimax, Wi-fi and Bluetooth

networks.These systems need either desktop/laptop computers

or dedicated hardware display systems. These conventional

wireless systems also suffer from noise interference problems.

To overcome these hurdles of wireless ECG data transmission

there is a need of long range, internet independent and

noiseless network. The present GSM and CDMA networks

are long range networks which cover most part of urban world

with a strong resistance to noise interference.

This paper elaborates a noise free wireless ECG

transmission system and sophisticated display software. Instant

ECG monitoring system has two parts; patient side hardware

and doctor side software.Instant ECG monitoring system uses

any one lead out of three AVR, AVL and AVF lead systemsto

acquire ECG. The acquired ECG is digitized using an

appropriate analog to digital converter. ADC output is a stream

of digital values. These values are packed into a data bundle

and then sent to a phone specific number by an advanced

microcontroller through interfaced GSM system in the form of

SMS. The phone which receives this SMS has Android

operating system and has ECG reading application software.

This ECG app fetches messages of only the particular number

which was used to send the ECG data, from the SMS inbox and

then displays the data in the form of a graph, which is the

acquired ECG signal at patient side. As SMS platform is used

to transmit the data there is very less possibility of noise

interference.

The ECG app software fetches the data from messages,

processes it then displays the outcome in a more appropriate

graphical way. The memory requirement is also less as

standard single SMS can provide 140 bytes of data carriage. So

in all the way the instant ECG monitoring system proves to be

an efficient real time tool for on time cardiac monitoring.

II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

As explained before Instant ECG monitoring system has

two subsystems; a) data acquisition and transmission system,

b) data process and display system.

Data acquisition and transmission system is carried by the

patient where data processing and display is done by the smart

phone of the doctor with the help of dedicated Android app

software. The architectures of both the systems are elaborated

in this section.

Data acquisition is the process of sensing electric potential

from the surface of the skin using electrodes and processing

that electric voltage for analyzing the function of heart as ECG.

The electrodes are placed at appropriate points on chest surface

International Journal For Research & Development in Technology

Paper Title:- Instant Elelectrocardiogram Monitoring in Android ISSN(O):- 2349-3585 Smart Phones (Vol.2, Issue-1)

28

Copyright 2014- IJRDT www.ijrdt.org

as directed by standards of ECG electrode placement. In this

system we use three electrode single lead set up for acquiring

ECG signal. So the system can monitor one of twelve standard

ECG leads and hence only one waveform will be available for

display. The voltage potential available at ECG cable output is

amplified then band pass filtered. The filtered output is

sampled and digitized. The digital values are stored into

microcontroller memory.

The microcontroller is the brain of this system. This

acquires digital values from ADC output then sends them to

GSM modem device. GSM modem is the bridge between

mobile phone network and ECG acquisition system. Through

this GSM modem with a SIM card of particular network

provider with a distinct number microcontroller sends SMS to

the data processing and display system present at doctors side.

As explained before this data processing and display unit is

doctors’ Android smart phone.

Figure 1. Patient side ECG acquisition and transmission

The doctors’ smart phone to which ECG digital data has been

sent is facilitated with updated Android smart phone operating

system. The ECG Android application being installed in the

smart phone fetches the SMS of the specific prescribed number

from inbox then produces the digital values of ECG signal

present in the SMS to plot waveform.

Along with plotting of ECG waveform the application software

also computes the heart rate using QRS detection algorithm

and thus concludes the possible arrhythmia being occurred in

heart rhythm. The type of arrhythmia detected by ECG

application software is displayed along with the graph. If

there’s no arrhythmia detected then ECG will be concluded

normal by the software.

The memory required by software is too less and cache will be

cleared immediately once we stop the running application

software. So there is advantage of low memory consumption

by the application software.

The application software utilizes QRS detection algorithm to

detect heart rate and thus identifies arrhythmia inherited with

acquired ECG. The functioning of application software can be

modeled as given in below figure.

Figure 2. Functional diagram of ECG Application software in Android OS

The ECG data available in the messages of specific number

at the message Inbox are transferred to QRS detector algorithm

and then for plotting the graph. Meanwhile results of QRS

detection are sent for detection of arrhythmia. Arrhythmia

detector analyses the presented results from the QRS detector

with standard ECG data, then sends results for display

indicating ECG embedded with any arrhythmia or normal.

ECG displayed is static plot because this helps doctor to

examine the waveform easy. Even if software fails to detect a

distinct arrhythmia then doctor can identify the abnormality in

the ECG waveform, this adds a flexible advantage of manual

arrhythmia detection in this system.

III. RESULTS

As the ECG data is transmitted through most reliable

mobile phone network there is very less possibilities of noise

interference. This is internet free data transmission so no

worries of data traffic. When ECG is normal display will be as

given shown in below figure.

Figure 3. Android display showing acquired normal ECG

It displays heart rate; that is beats per minute and the ECG

type, which is normal as per instant acquisition.

Further if acquired ECG is abnormal then application

software analyzes the abnormality and displays the detected

arrhythmia type, as given in below figure.

ADC Microcontroller GSM

Modem

ECG

Lead Op Amp BPF

SMS

Inbox

QRS

Detector Display

Arrhythmia

Detector

International Journal For Research & Development in Technology

Paper Title:- Instant Elelectrocardiogram Monitoring in Android ISSN(O):- 2349-3585 Smart Phones (Vol.2, Issue-1)

29

Copyright 2014- IJRDT www.ijrdt.org

Figure 4. Android display of ECG manipulated with Tachycardia

The detected heart rate simplifies detection of arrhythmia.

Similarly Bradycardia, Pre ventricular contraction and Bundle

branch blockage arrhythmias can be detected by this

application software.

The propagation delay of display of waveform depends

upon number of ECG messages present in the SMS Inbox of

smartphone. Propagation delay is directly proportional to the

number of ECG messages present in SMS Inbox. So it is better

to delete old ECG messages to have faster display of ECG.

Along with that resolution of ECG waveform also increases

with decrease in number of ECG messages or data. So memory

management is also in users hand. If physician needs to see

better display of ECG then he has to delete unwanted old ECG

messages from the Inbox. This is an advantage for the user and

the patient. This system provides a flexible memory

management utility to operators.

IV.CONCLUSION

Instant ECG monitoring System is a faster, flexible, user

friendly and Internet independent health service for cardiac

patients and doctors.

The system uses high security cell phone network for its

communication between two ends. And as this is one side

transmission system it is a simplex device which makes it

simple, fast and cost effective.

Its high security data transmission quality makes it a most

reliable compared to other present wireless ECG monitoring

systems.

As this system does not need Internet service for its

operation it can work without any system crashes or hangouts.

This trait adds one more crown of dependability on this system.

Memory consumption of ECG messages is very low

compared to large data blocks used in conventional wireless

ECG monitoring systems. The memory can be easily managed

by end user by deleting unwanted ECG messages in the SMS

Inbox. This does not affect other messages in the SMS inbox.

This is the reason that system is user friendly.

It also has some limitations, such as the display is quite

small, but any way it depends on affordability of end user. It

can detect only few types of arrhythmias mean while the doctor

has to analyze the signal and conclude the arrhythmia in most

of critical situations.

Display is not real time dynamic; that is user has to run the

application over and over to get very last ECG. This limitation

can be overcome in the future where application software will

be developed further.

V. FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

The Instant ECG monitoring system can be further

developed as compatible software application for different

Smart phone software environments. Dynamic ECG display

will ensure more real time cardiac monitoring. Hardware can

be made simple if voice band is used for ECG signal

transmission.

Development of arrhythmia detection algorithm will

enhance the reliability of the system to a new extent. This

system can revolutionize wireless biomedical signal monitoring

and analysis.

REFERENCES

[1] Kenneth J. Ayala, The 8051 microcontroller, USA, WP

Company, 1991.

[2] I. Scott MacKenzie and Raphael C.W. Phan, The 8051

microcontroller, 3rd ed. USA, Prentice Hall, 1999.

[3] Thomas W. Schultz, C and the 8051, 4th ed. USAPageFree

Publishing Inc, 2004.

[4] Nicola Pero, SMS Messaging Applications, USA, O'Reilly

Media, 2009.

[5] Gail Walraven, Basic Arrhythmias, USA, Brady Books,

2010.

[6] Rajashri Gupta, MadhuchhandaMitra, JitendranathBera,

ECG Acquisition and Automated Remote Processing,

India, Springer, 2012.

[7] R S Khandpur, Handbook for Biomedical Instrumentation,

India, Tata Mc-Graw Hill, 1992.

[8] Willis J. Tompkins, Biomedical Signal Processing,

Prentice Hall of India, 2002.