A Study on Developing Cardiac Signals Recording Framework (CARDIF) Using a Reconfigurable Real-Time Embedded Processor

Abstract

Due to recent developments in technology, there is a significant growth in healthcare monitoring systems. The most widely monitored human physiological parameters is electrocardiogram (ECG) which is useful for inferring the physiological state of humans. Most of the existing multi-channel ECG acquisition systems were not accessible in resource-constrained settings. This research study proposes a cardiac signal recording framework (CARDIF) using a reconfigurable input-output real-time embedded processor by employing a virtual instrumentation platform. The signal acquisition was configured using Lab VIEW virtual instrumentation block sets. A graphical user interface (GUI) was developed for real-time data acquisition and visualization. The time domain heart rate variability (HRV) statistics were calculated using CARDIF, and the same were compared with a clinical grade 12-channel ECG system. The quality of the acquired signals obtained from the proposed and standard systems was measured and compared by calculating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The proposed CARDIF was evaluated qualitatively by visual inspection by a clinician and quantitatively by fidelity measures and vital parameters estimation. The results are quite promising and can be extended for clinical validations.