Design of an Arrhythmia Detection System Using Wearable PPG Sensor

Any abnormality in the heart rhythm from the normal range is called arrhythmia. It may be due to lower or faster heart rate and the reason of other severe phenomena like Atrial and Ventricular fibrillation which are the most severe arrhythmias. Most of the cardiovascular deaths occurs due to arrhythmogenesis. Therefore, continuous heart rate monitoring is critical for patients who are in the high risk of cardiac events like the patients who have previous heart attacks. ECG based devices are commonly used for this type of monitoring. However, ECG recording needs placement of ECG electrodes and needs at least two limbs for recording. Chest leads ECG are sometimes uncomfortable for continuous monitoring. Therefor. PPG sensors are getting popularity for measuring heart rate as it can easily recorded from only fingertip or earlobe and does not require any adhesive gels. Considering the situations, we proposed a design of a heart rate measuring system using a low-cost available PPG sensor for the patients who need to monitor their heart rate at home especially at rural areas where clinical facilities are not much available. This system will continuously monitor the heart rate and in case of any abnormality of heart rhythm, the system will inform the concerned person immediately through the GSM module as well as an alarm will ring automatically. In the proposed system the MAX30102 pulse oximetry biosensor is used. Moreover, to check the reliability of the heart rate detection, we have used the KardiaMobile data to compare the PPG sensor based reading, which is an FDA approved clinical grade single-lead ECG monitoring device. Promising results were found which indicate that the low-cost PPG biosensor can be used as portable Arrhythmia detection device.