Televised Heartbeat Using Digital Stethoscope

This digital stethoscope calculates beats per minute and provides an alert if the rate falls out of a specified range while displaying the heartbeat on any television.

The stethoscope is the first part of the circuit which consists of very flexible medical latex tubing where the end piece is mated with the metal frame and the earpieces. The design of the project centers around the output on a TV screen, data processing in two MCUs, and acquisition circuit. The acquisition unit is the first part of the stethoscope which consists of an actual stethoscope attached with an amplifier circuit and a microphone. The audible signal from the body that is acoustically amplified by the stethoscope is captured by the microphone.

An operational amplifier is used to bias and set the gain of the signal so that the signal will be picked up by the ADC on the MCU. The two MCUs will sample the analog data independently at a rate appropriate for display on TV and a rate sufficient to capture the appropriate characteristics of the signal for beat detection. The signal is blasted to the TV displaying pertinent data.

Rest of the project