UNIVERSITY of

Available online at www.uofk.edu/uofkej KHARTOUM

UofKEJ Vol. 1 Issue 2 pp. 47-51 (October 2011) ENGINEERING
JOURNAL
(UofKEJ)

Microcontroller Based Heart Rate Monitor using Fingertip Sensors

Sharief F. Babiker, Liena Elrayah Abdel-Khair, Samah M. Elbasheer

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Khartoum

Khartoum, Sudan (E-mail: [email protected])

Abstract: This paper presents the design and development of a microcontroller based heart rate monitor using
fingertip sensor. The device uses the optical technology to detect the flow of blood through the finger and offers
the advantage of portability over tape-based recording systems. The important feature of this research is the use
of Discrete Fourier Transforms to analyse the ECG signal in order to measure the heart rate. Evaluation of the
device on real signals shows accuracy in heart rate estimation, even under intense physical activity. The
performance of HRM device was compared with ECG signal represented on an oscilloscope and manual pulse
measurement of heartbeat, giving excellent results. Our proposed Heart Rate Measuring (HRM) device is
economical and user friendly.

Keywords: Heart rate monitor; Fingertip sensor; Microcontrollers; Fourier transform

1. INTRODUCTION than less active people. Babies have a much higher heart rate
at around 120 bpm, while older children have heart rates at
Heart rate is the number of heartbeats per unit of time, around 90 bpm. The heart rate rises gradually during
typically expressed as beats per minute (bpm). Heart rate can exercises and returns slowly to the rest value after exercise.
vary as the body's need to absorb oxygen and excrete carbon The rate at which the pulse returns to normal is an indication
dioxide changes during exercise or sleep. The measurement of the fitness of the person. Lower than normal heart rates are
of heart rate is used by medical professionals to assist in the usually an indication of a condition known as bradycardia,
diagnosis and tracking of medical conditions. It is also used while higher than normal heart rates are known as
by individuals, such as athletes, who are interested in tachycardia 0.
monitoring their heart rate to acquire maximum efficiency.
The wave interval is the inverse of the heart rate 0. Most HRM devices use a design where the signal is acquired
from the subject and a filtering function is applied to remove
Changes in lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits have resulted the high order harmonics and noise from the signal. This is
in a dramatic increase in incidents of heart and vascular then followed by a hardware or software that uses a zero
diseases. Furthermore, heart problems are being increasingly crossing algorithms to count the number of beats during a
diagnosed on younger patients. Worldwide, Coronary heart given time interval (e.g. 0 and 0). The zero-crossing
disease is now the leading cause of death 0. Thus, any algorithm may lead to false readings caused by local noise
improvements in the diagnosis and treatment tools are that may result in multiple local zero crossings.
welcomed by the medical community. In a clinical
environment, heart rate is measured under controlled In this paper, we eliminated the zero-crossing problems by
conditions like blood measurement, heart beat measurement, the use of Fourier Transform of the digitised signal 0. This is
and Electrocardiogram (ECG) 0. However, there is a great a reliable technique that guarantees the automatic filtering of
need that patients are able to measure the heart rate in the any transient noise in the signal. The design and development
home environment as well 0. A heart rate monitor (HRM) is a of a low powered HRM device is presented. The device
simple device that takes a sample of the heartbeat signal and provides an accurate reading of the heart rate using optical
computes the bpm so that the information can easily be used technology. We incorporated the optical technology using
to track heart conditions. The HRM devices employ electrical standard infrared Light Emitting Diode (LED) and photo-
and optical methods as means of detecting and acquiring sensor to measure the heart rate using the index finger. A
heart signals. microcontroller is programmed to acquire the signal using its
embedded analogue to digital converter, ADC, and use the
Heartbeat rate is one of the very important parameters of the readings to compute the heart rate; eventually, the reading is
cardiovascular system. The heart rate of a healthy adult at rest digitally displayed on an LCD. In case the HRM device is
is around 72 bpm. Athletes normally have lower heart rates used in a continuous monitoring mode 0, the device would

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alert the medical professional or the person accompanying of 2.1 Fingertip Sensor
the patient, if the heart rate falls outside a given range. A
local audible alarm is also provided. The rest of the paper The sensor consists of an IR light emitting diode transmitter
provides a discussion on the system overview; describes the and an IR photo detector acting as the receiver. The IR light
full description of the HRM device and lists the experimental passes through the tissues. Variations in the volume of blood
results. within the finger modulate the amount of light incident on the
IR detector. Two practical configurations could be
2. SYSTEM HARDWARE implemented to achieve this function. In the first
configuration, the finger can be placed between the
The proposed HRM device is intended to have the following transmitter and the receiver as shown in Fig. 2. In the second

− The system provides an optical mechanism to detect

features: design, both the IR transmitter and receiver could be placed
on the same plane and the finger would function as a reflector
the modulations caused by the electrical or physical of the incident light instead. The IR receiver monitors the

− The system supports a keypad to allow the user to

changes in the heart movements. reflected signal in this case. The IR filter of the photo
transistor reduces interference from the mains 50Hz noise.

− The device is connected to an SMS modem to allow

enter information like name, age and telephone number.
Fig. 3 shows our pulse detection circuit. The IR LED is
the transmission of an alert text message to a medical forward biased through a resistor to create a current flow. The
values of resistors are chosen so that they produce the
− The system provides an LCD screen to output the
profession or a person accompanying the patient
maximum amount of light output. The photo-resistor is
measured heartbeat rate. Also, this display is used placed in series with the resistor to reduce the current drawn
by the detection system and to prevent short-circuiting the
− The device would provide an audible warning tone.
when entering user and configuration data.
power supply when no light is detected by the photo resister.

Fig. 1 shows the overview diagram of the proposed device.

The system consists of an infra red (IR) LED as transmitter
and an IR photo-transistor as a receiver that acts as a fingertip
sensor.

Transmitter

Tx LCD
Amplifier &
Finger Filter
Rx MCU GSM

Receiver

Keypad Buzzer

Fig. 1. Block diagram of the HRM system

Fig. 2. Illustration of fingertip sensor Fig. 3. The fingertip sensor circuit

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2.2 Amplification and Filter Stage

where the limits of integration are determined from our
The filter/amplifier circuit is a standard design and is knowledge of the signal and the time of observation.

a time duration of T. If the time between samples is ∆t, then

documented in many sources (e.g. 0). The signal from the IR Let us assume that a total N samples were collected during
sensor is very weak where the voltage is just around 50µV,
containing a significant noise level. The signal is affected by the signal could be expressed as a piece wise step level,
interference caused resulted from movement of artefacts like sample and hold, as:

g (t ) = g (t i ) where i∆t ≤ t < (i + 1)∆t

rings and mains 50Hz. It is known that the standard ECG
signal has frequency components in the range 0.05-200Hz. If (2)
filtered to the range 0-50Hz, the signal does not suffer any
significant loss of quality or information within the signal. The Fourier Transform could be computed using the discrete
The filtering process is necessary to block the higher data acquired by the ADC as follows:

∑ g (t i )e − j 2πft
frequency noise components present in the signal. A capacitor

G( f ) =
of 1µF value at the input of each stage is required to block the N
i
dc component in the signal. (3)
i =1
2.3 Physical Properties The real and imaginary components are thus given as:

Re(G ( f ) ) = ∑ g (ti ) cos(2πft i )

The device operates using a 9V battery source which should N
last for one year under normal use. The package is small,
i =1

Im(G ( f ) ) = − ∑ g (ti ) sin(2πft i )

lightweight and portable. The cost of the HRM device is kept
to the minimum in order to maintain a competitive edge with N

products currently available in the market. The current (4)

i =1
estimate of the cost of the components is ~SDG150. The
microcontroller is the main component in our device. It A flowchart of the software system implementation is shown
acquires the ECG signal via the ADC, computes the heart rate, in Fig. 4.
controls the LCD, keypad and GSM modem. The
microcontroller used in this study is the ATMEGA32. The 3.2 Heart Rate Range
driving software component includes the calculation
algorithm to measure the heart rate. The overall flow of the Our device computes the bps and compares the measurement
software application is depicted in Fig. 4. against the maximum safe limit for the subject in question.
The maximum safe bpm value is computed depending on the
3. SYSTEM SOFTWARE gender of the subject and his/her age. A number of methods
for the maximum safe bpm are used in the medical profession,
3.1 Discrete Fourier Transform including Martha, Londeree-Moeschberger, Miller and other
techniques 0. For our study, we adopted the formulae used by

⎧216 − 1.09 × Age Female

Determination of heartbeat bps depends on computing the UK practitioners to compute the upper limits, HRMax as:

HRMax = ⎨
Fourier Transform of the heartbeat signal. Assuming a

⎩202 − 0.55 × Age Male

relatively high heart rate of 120 bpm, we can compute the (4)
minimum sampling rate using the Nyquist-Shannon sampling
theorem as follows: The algorithm below summarises the software running on the
microcontroller to achieve the HRM device functionalities
The heartbeats per second = 120/60 =2 bps described in the previous sections:
The minimum sampling frequency = 2×2 = 4 samples per
second. Initialise input and output Ports
Enter user data
In our implementation, the MCU reads the input signal at a Forever Do
rate of 20 samples per second, i.e. well above the minimum Acquire smples from ADC (5 Seconds)
sampling rate computed above. This guarantees excellent Compute Fourier components
accuracy of our Fourier Transforms and a reliable computed Find Hearbeat rate
heartbeat rate. The sampling process continues for 5 seconds, Display rate on LCD
collecting a total of 100 samples, further improving the If HR is outside the safe range
accuracy of our device. Send SMS msg to assigned person (if not
already sent)
Let us assume that the continuous analogue signal is Switch Buzzer ON
represented by the function g(t). The Fourier Transform, G(f), Else
of this signal is then defined as, e.g. 0: Switch Buzzer OFF (if already ON)

∫
Endif
G ( f ) = g (t )e − j 2πft dt (1)
EndForever

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4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION with the analogue measurements, with errors of around 1.4%.
The data presented in [1] indicates that the zero-crossing
Fig. 4 shows the analogue signal acquired by the sensors and count technique resulted in an average error of 4.1%. This is
input to ADC port of the microcontroller. The signal is in line with the inherent counting errors in such systems.
consistent with the standard ECG signals used to measure the With an error of ±1 during a 10 sec period, the total error can
heartbeat rate and is also used in other types of clinical be as high as ±6 when the 1 minute rate is computed resulting
diagnosis. In Fig. 5 we show the frequency analysis of a in an overall 8.3% total error.
typical heartbeat signal. The Fourier Transform of the 5sec Another experiment was conducted where we measured the
interval shows a dominant peak power spectral density bpm of two male volunteers at rest. The volunteers then
obtained from the Fourier Transform at 72 bps. The second underwent a jogging exercise for five minutes and their
largest peak, i.e. the second harmonic of the heartbeat rate, is heartbeat rate was subsequently measured. The readings of
located at 144bps. Note that the algorithm implemented in the device were compared against the manual measurement.
this study searches only for the rate with the highest spectral The manual measurements were taken by counting the pulse
density. from the wrist. Overall, the results are in an acceptable
The final device was used to measure the heartbeat rate of a agreement with the actual readings. We further note that the
number of male and female volunteers. The results as well as deprecated method of estimating the pulses by counting the
the bps measured simultaneously using the heartbeat pattern pulse directly by pressing on the veins is indeed a rough and
of the same volunteers as displayed on the oscilloscope are unreliable estimate.
shown in Table. 1. These results show excellent agreement

Fig. 4. Fingertip sensor's output signal

1
0.6
1.2 0.2
‐0.2
Re(G(f)) 0 Time 5

Im(G(f))
|G(f)|
0.6
G(f)

0
0 50 100 150

‐0.6 Frequecy (bps)

Fig. 5. Fourier Transform, G(f) as a function of frequency (bpm),
Inset shows the 5 secs signal

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Table 1. Heart beat rate measurement using the developed ACKNOWLEDGMENT

device and via an oscilloscope
Gender Age HR on HR on Error % The authors would like to thank the staff of the Electronics
display scope Laboratory and the Control Lab, University of Khartoum, for
Male 22 97 96 1.03 their valuable assistance. They are grateful to the academic
Male 22 83 81 2.41 staff of the Department of Electrical and Electronic
Male 20 78 78 0 Engineering for the continuous help and support. Special
Male 22 90 87 3.33 thanks are due to all volunteers who cordially assisted in this
Male 20 80 79 1.25 study.
Female 22 77 77 0
Female 22 104 103 0.96 REFERENCES

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