IJCDS-2020 1570658549

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6   Portable Heartbeat Rate Monitoring System by WSN Using
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8   LABVIEW
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11   Fawaz Yaseen Abdullah 1, Mohammad Tariq Yaseen1, and Yasir Mahmoud Huseen1
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13   1 Electrical Engineering Department, Collage of Engineering, University of Mosul, Mosul, Iraq
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15   E-mail address: [email protected]
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17   Received ## Mon. 20##, Revised ## Mon. 20##, Accepted ## Mon. 20##, Published ## Mon. 20##
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19   Abstract: In this paper, we present a prototype for heart rate monitoring. Heart rate monitoring technology can be achieved using the
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and the LABVIEW app. This proposed system uses integrated devices to monitor individuals in
20   periodic periods via wireless technology. Biological factors are the only factors that can determine whether an individual is in normal
21   health conditions. The first stage of the proposed system includes monitoring the heart rate, where the heart condition is the most vital
22   sign, to determine the health status of players or people suffering from stress, and thus, converting abnormal states to fully verify the
23   heart signal as the second stage signal: all of these are fed to LabVIEW for diagnosis and treatment. As a result, the doctor can check
24   the health of the players remotely and save their lives during a training session or real competition.
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26   Keywords: Heartbeat rate monitoring, WSN, Health status
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29   substantial and expensive health management. Thus, the
30   1. INTRODUCTION embedded monitoring system development is very vital.
31   The death rate in the world has been increasing recently Also, it is promising to implement real-time monitoring
32   due to cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. system by incorporating the electrocardiogram (ECG)
33   Cardiovascular diseases are certain kind of disorders that signal detection and its processing on the same board [5].
34   damage the heart, veins, and arteries. Heart related Direct heartbeat detection and real-time heart rate
35   cardiovascular diseases are like heart attack, stroke, and monitoring are the main concerns in modern medical care.
36   heart failure. On the other hand, blood vessels related Different studies have revealed that many of the
37   cardiovascular diseases are like coronary artery disease, cardiovascular diseases could be well recognized,
38   which are known as vascular diseases. managed, and avoided by real-time monitoring and
39   World Health Organization (WHO) showed that analysis of electrocardiogram signals [6]. Therefore, the
40   cardiovascular diseases are the most reason for death in the real-time monitoring of body signals like (ECG) signals
41   world [1]. In the United States, cardiovascular diseases would open a new general model for the evaluation of
42   remain the first reason for the death of patients [2]. cardiovascular disease, which would help control and avoid
43   Moreover, statistics in Europe, which are based on data the disease. Technology developments in different fields
44   from different health institutes such as the European Health like communication networks, signals, and data processing
45   Network, showed that in average 2 million deaths duo to could help improve the performance of real-time
46   cardiovascular disease yearly. Using Heart Rate Monitor is monitoring which would provide a new smart, active
47   not only limited to healthcare monitors in the hospital or medical care [7].
48   for the elderly. But, it can be used in sport fields as well. Different methods have been deployed recently to
49   The Heart Rate Monitor will help monitor athletes during identify the QRS complex within the (ECG) collected
50   both performance and rest periods to maximize the training signal. Various approaches in the used methods reveals the
51   benefits [3]. development in the field of signal and data processing. For
52   The real-time monitoring of individuals suffering from instance, methods based on the discrete wavelet transform
53   heart problems, particularly patients with cardiovascular (WT), R-wave slope, support vector machines, and neural
54   diseases, is a significant task [4]. Real-time monitoring of networks [8-11] have been proposed to identify the QRS
55   people can help reduce the necessity of direct monitoring complex. In addition to different other methods [12-15].
56   by the human in the field and guarantee the monitoring of Nowadays, smart systems based on electronic devices
57   patients at urgent medical conditions without using have attracted people’s attention in many fields.
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Accordingly, designing a new smart system is not related screened out by using LabVIEW before it will be shown as
to the used software only. it would be related to the outcomes.
hardware implementation as well to decrease the power heart rate Tr ansmitters
(chest belt)
consumption and the final system size. Hardware
implementation using various new electronic devices has Player 1

become the best tool for developing medical care systems. Player2
heart rate receiver USB VISA CARD
These developed systems can handle complex functions Player 3

because of their certain purpose devices, cost effective, and PC with LABVIEW
flexibility.
Player 6

The main objective of this work was to enable the usage

of simple and low power compact sensor networks for real-
time and fast patient monitoring, which could be very
beneficial in many applications such as health care
monitoring and sleep monitoring.
In this paper, we present a prototype for monitoring of Figure 1. Block diagram of the wireless heart rate monitoring.
heartbeat rate. This heartbeat rate monitoring technique can
be realized by using a wireless sensor network (WSN) and The heartbeat is received through the chest belt as
LABVIEW application. This proposed system is using mentioned previously and the data is sent to the computer
real-time heart pulse devices (HPDs) to monitor players through the identifier (Serial port monitor) using the library
during work and rest periods to maximize the training (VISA IN), which is necessary to define the belt due to the
benefits via wireless technology. Biological factors are the difference of the belt manufacturer from the company
only factors that can determine whether the players are in (National instrument) that manufactured the program
normal health conditions or not. HPDs have been utilized (LabVIEW), we also used the operator PL2303) to separate
as a training aid equipment in the sport field. Moreover, the the received bits, and then use the so-called graphical
development of new HPDs has grown swiftly. programming (LabVIEW version 2018) to obtain useful
Consequently, HPDs are mainly utilized to assess the information about the athlete's health condition through the
training intensity during the training session. Heart rate pulse rate during the exercise of stress, where Note in
signal is easy to collect and monitor. It also involves rich Figure (2) the program interface for receiving a heartbeat
information of exercise intensity compared to the other for many Athletes by specifying the port number (Com7)
indication. and the speed of data transmission between the two
This paper was arranged as follows. In the second transmitters and receivers (baud rate) by 115200 bit/sec.
section, the used setup of wireless heartrate monitoring
system is described. Section three describes the
experimental results and discussion of this work. Finally,
we summarized all conclusions and future
recommendations based on this proposed system.

2. WIRELESS HEART RATE MONITORING

In this section, the description of the proposed system
via utilizing wireless sensor network is demonstrated. The
proposed heart rate monitoring system can be implement as Figure 2. The interface program LabVIEW designed to receive
heartbeat wirelessly to some players
shown in figure 1. It can be split into two stages. The first
stage is to monitor heart rate continuously, especially The second stage is using the ECG sensor technology
during stress. A KYTO2816C chest belt transmitter was to observe and measuring the electrical activity of the heart
used to interact with the 2.4G heart rate receiver and via deployment of Arduino microcontroller combined with
transfer data to the LABVIEW application for the patients' the ECG Module (AD8232) in order to connect the ECG
heartbeat. Then, it views the heart rate monitoring via setup to the main processing unit to be able to analyze the
computer in real-time network settings. Several players, for received data by LABVIEW application.
instance 3 to 6 players, will put on a heart rate belt on their The ECG signal describes the heart electrical activity.
chests in different places. The heart rate data will be sent to The ECG set is commonly used in the medical centers
the main processing unit wirelessly via a Wi-Fi wireless because of its non-invasive features. The ECG signal can
network. The received data from different players will be be represented by a combination of three signals that are P,

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T, and the QRS. These three signals involve the vital requires a current of (170 mA), a voltage of (3.5 DCV), and
characteristic of the ECG signal. Every signal represents an gain equals to (100).
electrical activity encompassed in the heart. The QRS
complex represents ventricular depolarization [16]. The
ECG signal is commonly collected through two steps. First
by sensing weak electrical signal on the skin. After that,
amplifying that weak electrical signal. This weak electrical
signal is generated on the skin as a result of the heart
electrical signal at every single heartbeat. The ECG setup
props can sense this weak electrical signal as a voltage
between the two sides of heart. For a practical
implementation and validation of the QRS complex, it is
suggested to use recorded data sets [10,17]. These recorded
data sets were converted to digital at 360 Hz sampling rate
and using band pass filter at 0.1–100 Hz [18].

Figure 3. ECG of a heart in normal conditions.

Figure 4: Integrated circuit AD8232

3. EXPERMENTAL SETUP AND RESULTS

A. ECG Sensor and ECG Amplifier Circuit
B. Signal Processing By LabVIEW Software
As mentioned, collecting the ECG signal is a two-step
The LabVIEW program is distinguished, as mentioned
procedure through monitoring the heart electrical activity
previously. It contains a large set of data receiving tools
over a certain period of time using props placed right over
from the various input units of the calculator. Even if the
the skin. First, using props that are able to sense even weak
LabVIEW program does not know the input tool that was
electrical fluctuations on the skin that are originally
used with the program, it is possible to build a special
generated because of the heart muscles movement at every
definition of this tool in the LabVIEW program for that
single heartbeat. Then, the collected signal is amplified
entry without additional programs.
using an amplifier circuit based on an operational amplifier.
In addition, we have linked Arduino with the LabVIEW
AD8232 is the used operational amplifier. Later, the output
program to receive the signal and reducing the noise by
amplified signal is sent directly to the Arduino
using the identifier by downloading the library (LabVIEW
microcontroller.
interface Arduino) and making an overlap between them.
The industrial circuit AD8232 was used to receive the
Indeed, LabVIEW as shown in Figure 6 received the signal.
cardiac signal by connecting the circuit with (Arduino) (the
code in the next section). Then displaying the signal C. Digital Filter Design Using LabVIEW
through the waveform or the personal computer and Previously, we talked about the heart signal being a
drawing the signal through (Serial Port). small signal with a limited frequency range and. A signal
In order to monitor the heart rate, we have used the with these characteristics is subject to many types of noise
integrated circuit (AD8232 - made by Analog Device), and interference that affect the signal and cause distortion.
which is one of the circuits where noise removal is required However, it is possible to get rid of this noise or reduce its
especially in medical applications. AD8232 is a signal impact by using filters.
conditioning integrated circuit used to pick up weak noisy The filter is a circuit that passes a signal with a limited
signals, amplify, and filter them. To function properly, it range of frequencies and prevents the passage of other
frequencies. There are different kinds of filters, for

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instance, low pass filter, band pass filter, and high pass
filter.

Figure 7: Use a low-frequency filter to remove frequencies

greater than (100HZ).

Figure 5: Photograph of the instrument while on clinical trial

Figure 8: Use of notch filter to remove the influence of the

power source (50HZ).

The heart rate signals from the sensor modules were

measured in beats per minute (BPM) for six players as
shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1: THE RESULTS OF SIX PLAYERS TESTING WITH DIFFERENT AGE.

Heart
Rate
Name Age Height Weight
(BPM)
under test
Ali 30 187cm 75kg 95-162
Ahmed 48 155cm 55kg 85-145
Yasser 35 184cm 80kg 88-157
Balsam 40 171cm 66kg 90-153
Laith 45 167cm 70kg 88-144
Jason 23 165cm 71kg 78-150

The ECG signal and heart rate were successfully

obtained using the setup of this work. For patients,
authorized caregivers can view the results continuously and
get messages or alarms for urgent cases so that they can
take immediate actions to help patients. Below in Fig. (9)
and Fig. (10) are results obtained using our wireless heart
rate monitoring system. The obtained results can be viewed
and visualized via a GUI window using LabVIEW. Also,
remote medical caregivers can keep monitoring patients.
The LabVIEW GUI windows were designed via LabVIEW
2018 as shown in
Figure 6: Implantation diagram using LabVIEW
Fig. (9) and Fig. (10).

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank NanoGreen Group and
College of Engineering, University of Mosul for their
support to accomplish this work successfully.

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Fawaz Yaseen Abdullah has BSc

degree in Electrical Engineering,
MSc degree in Network
Communication, and PhD in
Network Communication.

Mohammad Tariq Yaseen has

BSc degree in Electrical
Engineering, MSc degree in
electronics Engineering, and PhD in
Nanoelectronics Engineering.