Real-time implementation of a chest-worn accelerometer based heart monitoring system

This paper presents the real-time implementation of an approach for monitoring the heart using a single accelerometer. The implementation described is based on an algorithmic approach that has been shown to successfully remove motion artifacts from accelerometer based heart signal measurements. A driving factor in this project is the need for low-cost heart rate monitoring as part of a personal monitoring system for use world-wide. The digital signal processor (DSP) chosen for the implementation was Texas Instruments (TI) TMS320C5505 DSP in order to reduce the power requirement of the specific implementation thereby conserving battery life. The TMS320C5505 CPU can operate on 1.05 V and the chip architecture has been highly optimized for energy efficiency.