Development of three lead hardware system for ECG extraction / Hafiezf Izzuddin Husin

The human heart produces tiny amount electrical current during each beat. This tiny current is spread through out the human body and is detectable on the human skin. It is possible to record the heart activity by placing electrode on certain parts of the body. The recording of the heart activity is called electrocardiogram (ECG) and is represented in graph as voltage over time. In this thesis, the heart activity is extracted from the skin and displayed on the oscilloscope. Hardware is developed to acquire bio-signal on the human skin according to the Einthoven 3 lead method. Einthoven 3 lead method uses to 2 electrodes placed on three combination of location on the human body. The developed hardware consists of amplifier and filters. In contrast to the American Heart Association (AHA) which recommends a cutoff frequency of 100Hz for the low-pass filter; this project utilizes a 40Hz cutoff frequency low-pass filter for noise removal. The ECG signal extracted is compared, calculated its R-R interval for verification. The development of a 3 lead hardware produces an ECG signal that can be used for monitoring purpose. In general, the results ECG displayed from the developed hardware is similar to the ECG signal obtain when using the KENZ ECG machine.