Short range centralized cardiac health monitoring system based on ZigBee communication

Remote health monitoring is a prominent area in modern biomedical research. This involves collection in different biomedical signals from patient using information and communication technology with the objective of remote end assessment of these vital conditions. This paper describes a short range centralized health monitoring system to acquire electrocardiogram (ECG) data using wireless ZigBee communication for computerized analysis. A prototype compact patient data collection system based on ATmega16L microcontroller was developed to collect and compress single lead ECG data for wireless transfer to a centralized station for remote end processing. A state of the art developed software in the central station controlled the patient modules and post acquisition data analysis. Test results with Physionet data and ECG collected from volunteers shown satisfactory result. Average compression achieved using 70 ECG files was 6.93 with average PRD and PRDN of 1.1343 and 8.4645 respectively. Feature extraction results using receiving end ECG data showed an average variance of 0.12%.