| KEYWORD |
Area Engineering
Design of a wearable device for monitoring vital parameters
keywords CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES, HEALTH-MONITORING, PCB, PCB DESIGN, WEARABLE AND IOT DEVICES
Reference persons EROS GIAN ALESSANDRO PASERO, VINCENZO RANDAZZO
Research Groups Neuronics (Artificial Neural Networks)
Thesis type EXPERIMENTAL, EXPERIMENTAL - DESIGN, EXPERIMENTAL APPLIED, EXPERIMENTAL LABORATORY
Description In Europe, Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death, accounting for 32% of all deceases, with an estimated cost of €210 billion annually. Addressing CVDs through monitoring and prevention is crucial to improve health expectancy and reduce the economic burden of these diseases. It is in this scenario that smart wearable devices fit. In fact, they let self-monitoring of heart rate and activity. These information, together with other vital parameters, provide feedback to cardiologists, allowing them to remotely monitor patients, eventually detecting early warning signs of CVDs, and to intervene with cures before complications might occur. There are currently several devices that allow self monitoring of heart activity, but they are not designed to provide a comprehensive diagnosis of cardiac conditions. They commonly provide just numerical information about heart activity, and eventually report a single-lead ECG.
The aim of this thesis is thus to study and to realize an innovative wearable device capable of overcoming these limitations acquiring in a non invasive way: a six-leads medical ECG, Blood Oxygen Saturation (SpO2) and body temperature. These parameters provide crucial insights into cardiac and respiratory function and, more in general, on individual health and well-being. While single-lead ECGs offer limited diagnostic utility as the electrical activity of the heart comes from one direction only, a six-leads ECG records information from six different electrodes placed on specific locations of the chest and of the limbs. This way, it allows diagnosis of cardiac conditions such as arrhythmia, ischemia and heart blocks. The device conceived in this thesis project uses an ultra-compact design with just three electrodes, leveraging on the mathematical relationship between the six leads.
The device simultaneously acquires two differential signals from the input electrodes as well as photoplethysmographic signal and body temperature. Common mode noise is reduced using an instrumentation amplifier and different analog filters will be tested to reduce other sources of noise. Acquired data will be sent to a microcontroller and transmitted via Bluetooth to a smartphone application which displays acquisitions in real time. Furthermore, elaboration includes processing of the signals through digital Finite Impulse Response filters. Also, the device will have an on-board memory able to store few hours of acquisition of data.
Practically, the development of the thesis project will go through the following steps: Pen and paper design of the different functional blocks of the circuit; Schematic diagram and PCB layout realization using Cadence OrCAD; Firmware development with special focus on power-savings; Implementation of DSP filtering techniques.
By offering an accessible and user-friendly solution, this device potentially simplifies and changes the current conception of health monitoring, improving prevention strategies, diagnosis, and treatments of cardiovascular diseases.
Required skills passion for thesis work. basic knowledge of PCB design. if you have knowledge of cardiovascular diseases and wearable devices it can be useful. otherwise we will provide all the material
Notes This thesis is the logic prosecution of previous thesis on the development of wearable device for heart monitoring
Deadline 04/03/2025
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