A REAL TIME CARDIAC MONITORING SYSTEM - Arterial Pressure Waveform Capture and Analysis

Abstract

An arterial pressure waveform recorder and analyser based on a Microchip PIC microcontroller (µC), dsPIC33FJ256GP710 is described in this article. Our purpose is to develop a dsPIC based signal monitoring and processing system for cardiovascular studies, specially dedicated to arterial pressure waveform (APW) capture. We developed a piezoelectric (PZ) probe designed to reproduce the APW from the pulsatile activity taken non-invasively at the vicinity of a superficial artery. The advantages in developing a microcontroller based system show up in decreasing the associate cost, as well as in increasing the functionality of the system. Based on a MathWorks Simulink platform, the system supports the development and transfer of program code from a personal computer to the microcontroller, and evaluation of its execution on rapid prototyping hardware. Results demonstrate that embedded system can be an alternative to be used in autonomous cardiovascular probes. Although additional studies are still required, this probe seems to be a valid, low cost and easy to use alternative to expensive and hard to manipulate devices in the market.