Development of vital signs monitor

Abstract

The vital signs monitor is essentially a real time device that displays certain received signals from the human body. It is widely used in medical institutes but Bangladesh is yet to manufacture it locally. The projects of this sort under taken so far have used windows to display the output whereas this project aims to generate a real time display of the signals received from the human body using Linux. Linux was preferred for its ability to simultaneously process data and display it in real time. This includes creating appropriate sensors, proper modifying circuits and ensuring real time display. The project is of three folds, completing three separate channels for three variables that will be continuously measured and displayed by the device. The three variables are electrocardiogram, oxygen saturation and human body temperature.

The development of this project was circled around the need for real time display. Appropriate circuits modified the input signals to make them suitable for DAQ card reading. Linux was used to display the output of DAQ card in real time. This enhanced the real time characteristic of the output.