Disgn and Implementation of An Embedded Romete EGC Measurement System

IMTC 2005 – Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference Ottawa, Canada 17-19 May 2005

Design and Implementation of an Embedded Remote ECG Measurement System

Ying-Wen Bai, Chien-Yung Cheng, Chou-Lin Lu and Yung-Song Huang

Department of Electronic Engineering, Fu Jen Catholic University

Taipei, Taiwan, 242, R.O.C.

Email: bai@ee.fju.edu.tw

– Since an embedded circuit board is lower in cost, smaller in size, and lower in power consumption than a PC. In this paper, we use an integrated embedded circuit board instead of using a PC and interface circuit board with our system, which can provide the ECG measurement of a patient who is outside of a hospital. The collected medical information through computer networks will be stored in the medical information databases for accessing by the medical doctors, nurse, and other related health professionals. Our design integrates several modules such as, an embedded circuit board, a database, a Web server, wireless or Internet transmission, and remote user devices. Overall, our system can transmit the heart beat-rate, body temperature and electrocardiogram to the medical information database from a remote site. Keywords: Medical Measurement System, ECG, Embedded Circuit Board, Web Server.

I. INTRODUCTION

Tradiionally, he medical measuremen sysem can be

expensive and a medical measurement system can be difficult

to access for a needed patient. Moreover such a system is

neither compatible with the PC and communication standards

nor is it easily upgraded. In addition, a special patient may

need a medical measurement system to monitor one’s body

condition even if that individual is located in the hospital.

Based on these requirements and available technology, our

design provides a convenient operational procedure utilizing

an embedded circui board and Web server o provide a

remote electrocardiograph measurement.

Typically, an electrocardiogram is generated by a nerve

impulse stimulus to a heart, whereby the current is diffused

around the surface of the body surface. The tiny current at the

body surface will build on the tiny voltage drop, which is a

couple of µV to mV with an impulse variation. This very

small amplitude of electrocardiograph, needs to be amplified

a couple of housand imes for recording and displaying.

Simultaneously, the amplified signal is then inputted into an

analog to digital conversion and through the digital interface

inpued ino an embedded circuit board. The embedded

circuit board uses client-server network programming to

transmitting this digital medical signal to the remote database

by wireless or wire networks.

Based on the current software and hardware technology,

our design provides a convenient operational procedure to

conduct a remote electrocardiograph measurement from

outside of a hospital. All of the basic modules can be easily designed and implemented and they can be compatible with

he currently used systems. In 2003, people used a GSM

module o ransmi his digial medical daa [1], bu he

Internet transmission has proved faster than a GSM module.

In our design, we used an embedded circuit board network

module to transmitting this digital medical data. Moreover,

due to the improvement of the current software and hardware

technology of both computer systems and networks, a remote

medical system needs to be redesigned by using more modern

technologies, such as: a Web server, the Internet and wireless

networks and an embedded circuit board. Hence, Our design

includes several modules: an interface circuit board, an

embedded circuit board, the software on the embedded circuit

board for wireless or Internet transmission, and the software

for he remoe medical servers. As he embedded circui

board software is a module design using an ANSI C,

therefore it is compatible with most current computer devices.

Finally, our explanation emphasizes the design of an

embedded circuit board and the remote server software

module of an embedded remote electrocardiogram

measurement system.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2,

a brief overview of a remote medical measurement system is

provided. In Section 3, the hardware modules are discussed.

In Section 4, the software modules are designed. In Section 5,

the implementation and specification of the design are

provided. In the last Section, the conclusion is drawn.

II. A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF A REMOTE MEDICAL

MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

An elecrocardiogram is generaed by a nerve impulse

stimulus to a heart, whereby the current is diffused around the

surface of the body surface. The current at the body surface

will build on the voltage drop, which is a couple of µV to mV

with an impulse variation [2-3]. This very small amplitude of

impulse needs to be amplified to enable the recording and

displaying. Usually, the electrocardiograph needs a couple of

thousand times of amplification. The function blocks of the

interface circuits of a remote electrocardiogram system are

used to amplify the tiny ECG signal with noise reduction. In

our design, the interface circuit is used to pick up the

elecrocardiograph and amplify his signal by using noise

suppression and electricity isolation. The amplified ECG

signal is then inputted into an analog to digital converter and

through the digital interface inputted into an embedded circuit

Abstract14010-7803-8879-8/05/$20.00 ©2005 IEEE