Article: A Flexible Microcontroller-Based Data Acquisition Device

by Darko Hercog and Bojan Gergi

Sensors 2014, 14(6), 9755-9775; doi:10.3390/s140609755
Received: 25 March 2014; in revised form: 23 May 2014 / Accepted: 27 May 2014 / Published: 2 June 2014
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(This article belongs to the Section Physical Sensors)


https://www.docstoc.com/pass?docId=109188342&download=1

Nader Bagherzadeh, Siu Kit Cheng, Paulo Leong, Vanessa Herrera
Advisor: Dr. Jeff Omens
UCSD Bioengineering senior
design project group 8
Abstract
Introduction
Design Alternatives
Decision Matrix
Design Solution
Prototype Results
Discussion
Contributions
References
The testing of the proposed ECG filtering program consisted of gathering the ECG data using a bio amplifier
(AD630) and with the use of an analog of digital convertor to transfer the ECG signals to Labview where different
filtering could be performed using Matlab code. In order to create a prototype that could be used to test the
efficiency of the program, all parts of the proposed design were individually tested. First Labview 8.2 was installed
on a laptop, and proper drivers were installed for the Analog to digital convertor. Next using a signal generator, the
ADC was tested and working in Labview. Next the matlab code was created and tested. For p rototype testing, only
the filtering programs were tested.

To assess the performance of the matlab code, several 3-lead ECG were recorded and saved in text files. The
recorded text files were useful in testing the filtering because in order to optimize and create a high performaning
program, it is important to be able to manipulate the data, therefore testing the matlab program in real-time would
have been a limitation. After testing these matlab files, the filtering programs can be inserted in Labview and used
in real time.
Results from testing and discussion

20 different ECG measurements were recorded and analyzed. It can be seen that the SNR in the filtered data is much
greater compared to the original ECG measurement. This indicates that the filtering decreased noise levels while not
attenuating the amplitude of raw signal. Graph 1 consists of the overlapping signals of the filtered and not filtered
data, and it can be seen how the filtered ECG signal has a lower error amplitude which consists of high frequency
fluctuations. The noise amplitude was taken at the isoelectric region of the ECG measurements, where by theory the
amplitude of the isoelectric line is considered to have an amplitude of zero.
[http://mauvila.com/ECG/ecg_fundamentals.htm] Then the amplitude of the QRS segment was taken to be the
amplitude of the signal ratio after subtracting the error amplitude of it. The SNR was calculated as SNR =
20log10(signal/noise).
A t-test was going to be performed by comparing the results of the filtered ECG signal using our program
compared to that of commercial grade products. The golden standard device, the humbug, was unable to filter out
any of the signal and did not properly work with the AD630 bioamplifier. This could result from the ECG data
containing a great amount of noise that it could not differentiate between the noise and the raw signal.

Figure XX displays the power spectrum graph, in which random noises at different frequency was filtered. A peak at
400Hz causes the high fluctuation of the data, a higher resolution ECG could be obtained after removing the 400Hz
noise.

Also, the amplitude at 60 Hz decrease but not completely filtered. That is because the ECG contains important
information at that frequency. If a notch filter is applied, and the signal at 60Hz is completely filtered, the data
would be distorted. At 15 and 30 Hz, the amplitude of the power spectrum are the same after filtering, this is
because ECG has its own waveform and frequency, P wave is around 10-15Hz, where QRS complex has the
frequency between 10 to 50Hz.
An unpaired t-test was analyzed to if the data sets of the filtered and unfiltered measurements were statistically
different. The P value of the two tailed equaled 0.001. The difference between the data is considered to be very
statistically significant. [http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/ttest2/] The t value was calculated to be 4.4 while the
df was calculated to be 11. The 95% confidence interval of the difference of the mean is between 9.964 and 29.833.
This statistical testing helps us state that the filtered data was in fact different than the noisy data, which from
comparing the power spectrum density, it can be seen that the noise is filtered.
Limitations
The number of ECGs selected was based on the time availability of obtaining ECG measurements.
Biosignals usually have a great amount of variability between different testing subjects, and it could have been seen
with the data. The Signal to noise ratio (dB) measured in the noisy ECG had standard deviation of 4.9222. This
resulted from the contrasting signal amplitudes of the raw signal. This was the same case for the filtered ECG. The
standard deviation of the SNR for the filtered ecg data was much lower 10.50000, due to the proportional signal to
noise ratio after filtering the data.
Another limitation in the prototype testing was not being able to compare the result to a high performing device. A
device called Humbug is designed in laboratory to eliminate the noise. It was original planned to compare the SNR
to our data, but it was malfunctioning. Therefore, there is no standard value to compare our result with.
During the testing phase, many modifications were made on the matlab programs. We were unable to use the
filtering parameters that was first planned, i.e using the traditional band pass, low pass and high pass filters due to
the distortion of the data.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8_4aP39K5Y
Live ECG Acquisition with Arduino and Labview : INA 114 IA with
Arduino based Filtering

rupam rupam
Published on Jul 2, 2014
INA-114 based Amplifier.
Rg=1K
Left lead= Pin 2 with 470Ohm. 10K from 2 to ground as Pull down resistor
Right lead= Pin 3 with 470Ohm. 10K from 2 to ground as Pull down resistor.
Output passed to Arduino Pin A0 with 1uF capacitor

The Whole filter is implemented in Arduino
http://jeroendoggen.github.io/Arduino...
And Smooth function.
Sampling Rate: 300

To make analogRead more stable:
analogRead;
delayMicroseconds 500;
analogRead 0;

It compensates for ADC error.
In LabView side: Visa is used to continually acquire data.

However interpretation is there is no substitution for hardware filters. When you remove the leads, floating
noise still exists even with pull down resistor.