Real-Time Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Electrocardiogram Monitoring Device

The Electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement plays a major role to diagnose different heart conditions. This paper proposes the design and development of a low power portable ECG measurement device. The device uses three standard ECG electrodes placed on a human body to monitor the heart rhythm or arrhythmias. The measured signals are processed on-board for further processing and displayed on a smart device. A single-chip ECG signal-conditioning chip is used as an analogue frontend. The pre-processed signal is sampled by an analogue to digital signal converter peripheral, which is part of the Microcontroller (STM32L1) used for this application. Furthermore, the ECG signal is further processed on-board using DSP techniques for reliable measurement. The device uses the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) network processor, which interfaces to the MCU. The processed raw data (ECG) samples are transmitted via the BLE medium for displaying and storing them on a smart device. The device also measures the heart rate as part of the on-board processing. Further, part of the measured data is validated against the clinically measured samples for verifications.