International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)

Volume 137 – No.10, March 2016

Design of Electronic Stethoscope and Heart Rate

Monitor for Remote Area Application
V.R. Prasad G.M. Phade
Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering
SITRC, Nasik SITRC, Nasik
Maharashtra, India Maharashtra, India

ABSTRACT captured from patient body contain few Mega-Bytes of data, it

Developing countries like India, where doctor to patient ratio is efficient to use electronic mail. Every PHC is connected
is around 1:1700, as large number of population lives in with some kind of transmission media like high-speed
villages and remotely located area. Health check-up of such a Broadband or mobile tower with high-speed internet
large population is very challenging for their government due connectivity, it is possible to send and receive signal.
to less number of qualified doctors, highly qualified doctor
refuges to work in villages and remotely placed areas. This
paper proposes a new idea by which an electronic stethoscope
is used to provide health check-up of such large population,
by creating a public health center (PHC) in every village or
combining more small villages to one PHC and connecting it
with authorized center, authorized center monitors more than
fifteen PHC. Recording of human organ signal by using
stethoscope and transmitted to the authorized center using
electronic mail can reduce the requirement of large number of
doctors.

General Terms
Signal transmission, Authorized center, Recording and
Analysis of signal, Internet connectivity.

Keywords
Stethoscope, PHC, Arduino board, Electronic mail.

1. INTRODUCTION
Highly populated countries like India where doctors to
patients ratio is very low, due to low doctors to patient ratio,
very poor health check-up of needy and poor people residing Fig 1: Signal Transmission
in remote area and villages. Qualified doctor refuges to work
in remote area, unavailability of qualified doctors in remote 2. HARDWARE DESIGN
area and villages, death ratio is very high due to illness and Figure 2 shows circuit diagram of an electronic stethoscope
disease in these areas. Work carried out in this paper, uses a designed with the help of (ATMEGA-328 microcontroller)
electronic stethoscope [1-2] designed with the help of arduino arduino uno [5] processor. Signal captured from human organ
microcontroller board, that records human organ signals, using stethoscope is given to the audio amplifier for signal
stored in memory[9-10], which is transmitted to the amplification, LCD and keypad is also interface for the user
authorized center where qualified doctors analyze signal interaction with stethoscope. The amplifier LM358, which
receive from the particular public health center (PHC). amplifies the signal taken from human organ with analog
Qualified doctors analyze signal and if any illness present in sensor, applied to the Arduino board for processing of signal.
signal then necessary medicine is prescribe to patients through Keypad 20x4 is connected to the arduino board for user
local doctor. command, LCD display is also embedded with arduino board
Figure 1 illustrates that how signal processed by the processor for viewing heart beats, simple programming is used for
at the primary health center stored in the memory and sent to communicating arduino board with other interface
the nearest authorized center for the further analysis purpose, equipments. After storing signal at PHC, it
it also demonstrate that how signal from nearest authorized
center is received by the local doctor at PHC, it is simply done
by electronic mail[3-4] as it is simple to send and receive the
signal very efficiently and safely[11], data consume by signal

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
Volume 137 – No.10, March 2016

Fig 2: Electronic Stethoscope Circuit Diagram

transmitted via electronic mail to the nearest authorization
center and after analysis it is received to local PHC. Every
time same procedure is followed and by using this method
communication between local PHC, authorization center is
established.

3. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Analysis of Signal after Recording
Recording of data (vibration occur when stethoscope is placed Fig 4: Heart Sound after Amplifier
on human body) by using stethoscope and stored in memory,
used for further analysis[13-14][16]. Recorded signal is send Different types of lungs sound like normal vesicular lung
to authorization center by using electronic mail, where expert sound, respiratory stridor lung sound, coarse crack-less lung
doctor use various software to plot these signal for analysis. sound, pleural friction lung sound and wheezing lung sound.
All PHC can communicate in the similar fashion with Most of the time with the use of traditional stethoscope, weak
authorization center for sending of such data recorded with signal is not detected and that leads to major problem. As
the help of stethoscope. shown in figure 5 normal vesicular lung sound, which is not
visible clearly as it has very low amplitude when it is detected
with electronic stethoscope. Hence cannot be analyzed clearly,
therefore it is applied to power amplifier to enhance the signal
as shown in figure 6.

Fig 3: Heart Sound as a Input

Data recorded is stored in the (.wav) file format as it is
suitable to plot or analyze further. As shown in figure 3 heart
sound with .wav format is applied as a input and output is Fig 5: Normal Vesicular Lung Sound as Input
recorded on the CRO. Signal is not much stronger(less
amplitude of few mili-volt) to detect illness present in that
signal, therefore this signal is applied to power amplifier to
enhance the signal for further use shown in figure 4.

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
Volume 137 – No.10, March 2016

Fig 6: Normal Vesicular Lung Sound after Amplifier

Using this technique a electronic stethoscope is able to record
signal and which can be analyzed by doctors, with the help of
various software it is easy to analyze illness present in the
signal. Fig 9: Recording for 20 Seconds

3.2 Heart Beats Monitoring User can press “key 2” for recording data for 40 seconds, as
Heart beats monitoring, basically used for monitoring heart shown in figure 10 when key 2 is pressed after that this screen
beats [6-8] in beats per minute (BPM). For this purpose, appears, in this interval of time user can record data for some
Arduino processor is used in this paper. As shown in figure 7 major illness like systolic murmur, which can lead to sudden
when power is switched on first initialization message is death of patient.
printed on LCD screen.

Fig 10: Recording for 40 Seconds

Fig 7: Initialization message If users want to record data for longer time i.e. around one
minute, user can press “key 7” which can record data for one
Interfacing of keypad with arduino processor enables user to minute. As shown in figure 11 when “key 7” pressed at that
choose a particular key on the keypad, by choosing a key, user time this screen appears, in this interval of time data recorded
can select mode for which interval of time data, user wants to can be used for detecting major problem which require longer
record. After initialization message on LCD screen, second time to detect, like problem in intestine, listening internal
message is printed showing user command to select particular heart sound and measuring blood pressure etc.
interval, he wanted to select. As shown in figure 8 second
message is printed on the screen showing press key for
different interval of time, as per the need of user, key can be
pressed. It up to the user requirement, what duration user
wants to record data.

Fig 11: Recording for one Minute

Table 1 shows memory requirement for recording of data for
particular time of interval. When key „1‟ is pressed signal can
be recorded for 20 seconds, consuming memory of
6.8MB(.wav file), when key „4‟ is pressed it record data for
Fig 8: Message for User to select key
40 seconds, that consume memory of 11.4 MB(.wav file),
If user want to record data for 20 seconds, user can press “key similarly when key „7‟ is pressed, it will consume 16.5 MB of
1”, as shown in figure 9 screen for 20 second is printed, in this memory for recording 1 minute of data.
interval of time user record data for normal illness like cough,
cold etc.

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
Volume 137 – No.10, March 2016

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IJCATM : www.ijcaonline.org
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