Introduction

Welcome to the home page of PPG-Based Heart-rate Monitor and Pulse Oximeter Project for ELEN 6350 VLSI DESIGN LABORATORY, Spring 2022 at Columbia University supervised by Professor Peter Kinget. The chip fabrication was generously sponsored by Apple Inc.




Figure 1. Photo of the completed Die

Project Background

COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, can damage the heart muscle and affect heart function. When people get coronavirus infection, they probably experience a rapid heartbeat or palpitations. Symptoms of a rapid or irregular heart rhythm may include:

It is necessary to monitor real-time heart rate with one simple instrument. Pulse Oximeter Based Heart Beats Rate Monitor is such a simple useful thing to detect the pulsation rate of the heart. It can non-invasively measure changes in human blood by using photo-plethysmography (PPG). With filters, low-noise amplifiers, comparators and a microcontroller, the results of heartbeat rate and oxygen saturation can be easily displayed on an LCD.

Project Goal

Our goal is to design a pulse-oximeter-based heartbeat rate monitor. To capture human heartbeat signals, we refer to the photoplethysmogram (PPG) technique, which is capable of detecting blood volume changes in the microvascular bed of tissue. After we collect human blood volume changes, we implement a filter network to extract cardiac signals from noisy signals. Then the signals flow into the chip. We have two-stage operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) and comparators for signal amplification and analog-to-digital conversion. When the signals flow out of the chip, they will pass through an Arduino board for signal processing. The final results will be displayed on an LCD.




Figure 2. Block Diagram - System



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