Proceedings of IEEE Third International Conference on Multimedia Processing, Communication & Information Technology – MPCIT 2020

JNNCE, Shivamogga, Karnataka, India

2020 Third International Conference on Multimedia Processing, Communication & Information Technology (MPCIT) | 978-1-6654-1987-1/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/MPCIT51588.2020.9350476

Implementation of IoT Based Wireless Electronic

Stethoscope
Ramesha M DankanGowda V Jeevan KM
Dept. of ECE, Assistant Professor Dept. of ECE, Assistant Professor Dept. of ECE, AssistantProfessor
GITAM School of Technology BMSInstitute of Technology and Management GITAM School of Technology
GITAM (Deemed to be University) Visvesvaraya Technological university GITAM (Deemed to be University
Bengaluru, India Bengaluru, India Bengaluru, India
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Sathisha B M
Department of ECE, Assistant Professor
Gopalan College of Engineering and Management
Bengaluru, India
[email protected]

Abstract— Applications of medical electronics play a vital rolein transmittedelectronically.Itcanalsobearecordingdevicewith

today’s world of engineering. Various medical devices such as noise reduction and signal enhancement property. The output
MRI, Stethoscope, Digital thermometers, electronic cardiac of the device is both audio and visual. Some smartphone apps
monitor (ECG), Brain wave machine, and Blood glucose monitor in the market can use the phone as a stethoscope. Though it is
are used for measurement of multiple parameters of the human
one of the recent technologies, the limitation is placing the
body. In this paper, some of the aspects with respect to
stethoscope are considered for the advancement with the help of mobile on the patient's body is not safe because mobile
IoT (Internet of Things). Till date, many electronic stethoscopes radiations will affect. There are numerous inventions are
designed were based on various technologies such as Bluetooth, taking place with respect to electronic-based Stethoscope;
ZigBee, neural network, and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems some of them are listed below. W.Y.Shi and J.C.Chiao
(MEMS), etc. There are few limitations associated with the proposed a new method to estimate acoustic parameters of
existing conventional stethoscopes such as short-distance heart sounds inreal- timeandinthelong-
communication, device weight, high cost, and difficulty in remote runusingawearablewristsensorbasedon the neural network
patient monitoring. In view of overcoming the above shortfalls, technique [1]. Here, electronic sensors are
thispaperproposesanewmethodofanalyzingacousticproperties of
usedtomonitoracardiacpatient’sdailyhealth.Thecircuitwas
heart sounds using an electronic stethoscope withIoT.
designed for the same with the low-power and high
connectivity wireless communication system. W.Y.Shi,Jeffrey
Keywords— Internet of Things, Stethoscope, Medical Mays,andJ.C.ChiaoproposedawearablewirelessStethoscope for
Electronics AcousticStethoscope recording heart and lung sounds using a filter, amplifier,
C8051F920 Microcontroller and an RF24L01 transceiver.
I. INTRODUCTION
Using the wirelessly recorded data, the parameter such asheart
We are using electronic devices in day to day life for various sounds were derived from the information in both time-
applications in medical electronics. Medical electronics frequency domains, respectively [2]. Haibin, Wang
provides sophisticated equipment with precision. The et.al.Proposed a heart sound measurement and analysis system
Stethoscope is the device in the medical field used forlistening for in house monitoring system [3]. The system included a
to the internal sounds of the human body or an animal. The conventional microphone and an IC recorder. The limitation
sounds of the lung, heart, intestines, and blood flow in veins with the proposed method is that the analysis is possible only
and arteries can be identified using a Stethoscope. Analog and for in- house applications i,e clinical experiments. KadamPatil
digitalStethoscopearethetwotypesofStethoscopecommonly D. D. and Shastri R. K have designed and simulated an
used, which include Acoustic Stethoscope and fetal embedded
Stethoscope are analog Stethoscope, whereas Electronic, digitalstethoscopebyusinganembeddedprocessorandZigbee for
Doppler, and 3-D printed is digital Stethoscope. Since the in house applications only. Proteus software was used to
functionsofdifferenttypesofacousticstethoscopesaresimilar, and simulate the signal [4]. DemiaoOu et al. developed an
it cannot be varied widely, whereas transducers in electronic electronic stethoscope for heart diseases based on micro-
stethoscopes can vary widely. Electronic Stethoscope is a electro-mechanical-system microphone [5]. This Stethoscope
wireless device wherein thesounds are includedanelectroniccircuitthatamplifiesheartsoundspicked up
from the stethoscope head and a bandpass to remove
backgroundnoiseandanAPPbasedontheAndroidsystem.

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 Christian McMechan and PomanSo designed a low-cost used to measures the temperature of a given object/person.The
electronic stethoscope that met the needs for telemedicine and commonly used temperature sensor is the LM35 temperature
affordable enough for widespread clinical adoption, as well as sensor, which provides linear output with low output
forhomeusebygeneralconsumers.ThisStethoscopeproduced an impedance. The PIC microcontroller PIC16F877A is utilized
excellent quality of sound and recording compatibility.This for control and processing operations. The PICmicrocontroller
device also has an additional feature like good battery life, low PIC16F877A is one of the most renowned microcontrollers
distortion audio amplification, LCD display, software used in digital electronics circuits for interfacing the remote
facilitating the transmission and retrieval of recorded signals sensors, security, and safety devices in many industrial
[6]. Some of the limitations with the research mentionedabove instruments.
workareshort-distancecommunicationintechnologiessuchas For the conversion of analog input into digital data,Analog-to-
Bluetooth and Zigbee, applicable only to in-homeapplications, DigitalConverter(ADC)circuitisused.Analogsignalssuchas a
increased size and complexity of the system, difficult toadhere sound picked up by a microphone can be converted into digital
to Stethoscope on the chest, and not supporting mobility of the form. ADC plays an essential role in Digital signal
patient while monitoring. Thus, this paper proposes a new processingfortheconversionofanalogdatatodigitaldata.The
method for analyzing acoustic properties of wrist pulse by digitalized signal is input to the PC associated with the
designing a new device with low cost, reduced size, and MATLAB. MATLAB is intended primarily for numerical
complexity, which shall enable long-distance communication computation, signal analysis, creation of user interfaces. The
so that the proposed method helps to overcome the limitations purpose of Cloud computing is to provide shared computer
as mentionedabove. processing resources and data to computers and other devices
on demand. It also provides storage solutions to users with
II. METHODOLOGY AND DESIGNASPECTS various capabilities to store and process their data. Also, every
usercanbeprovidedwiththeiruserIDandpasswordtoprevent
This section provides brief details about the block diagramand unauthorized access.
specifications of each component used to design the wireless
electronic Stethoscope using IoT.Fig.1 shows a Block diagram III. RESULTS ANDDISCUSSION
of digital Stethoscope with variouselements.
The proposed Electronic Stethoscope includespiezoelectric
vibration Sensor, PIC Microcontroller, Bluetooth Module,
PC/LaptopwithMATLAB,USBconverter(incaseofPC),
Acquired Cloud Space. The Schematic of Electronic
Stethoscope as shown in fig.2.

Fig.1: Block diagram of digital Stethoscope

BlockdiagramofdigitalStethoscopeconsistsofapiezoelectric
sensor, temperature sensor, Microcontroller, and Bluetooth
module, PC with MATLAB, and cloud platform. The
piezoelectric vibration sensor is a combination of piezoelectric
discandvibrationsensorusedtomeasurevariationsinpressure,
acceleration, temperature by converting them
toelectricalparameters.Vibrationsensorsareusedtolimitsthe
voltage at the output. The vibration sensor has a Zener diode
and a resistor connected in parallel. The input voltage to this Fig.2: Schematic of Electronic Stethoscope
circuit is the analog signal that is coming from the sensor. The Initially, identify the spot of obtaining proper pulse rate on the
regulated analog signals are input to Microcontroller. Thedisc, wrist, as shown in fig 3. Later the disc is placed at that point to
along with the vibration sensor, is called a piezoelectric measure the pulse rate, as shown in the fig 4. The input to the
vibration sensor. A temperature sensor in the block diagramis sensor is pulse pressure. The disc, along with the vibration

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Sensorprovidesthevoltage,asshowninfig5.Theoutputfrom the 1.2V - 2V will be applied directly as input to the
vibration sensor will be varying from 0 - 2V (regulated analog Microcontroller,asshowninfigure5.ADCandUARTpresent
signals). insidetheMicrocontrollerhelpstoconverttheseanalogsignals
from the sensor into a digital signal and to serially transmit the
bitwisedigitaldatatoPC/LaptopviaBluetooth.Thefollowing steps
are followed during the internal ADCcalculation.

(1)

IfVin>Vref,thenbinaryoutputis1,thenforfurthercalculation, Vmin
is replaced by previous Vref, Vmax remains thesame.
If Vin<Vref, then output is 0, then Vmax is replaced by previous
Vref, Vmin remains the same.
The data which is digitalized in the Microcontroller is serially
transmitted to the laptop via Bluetooth module. The frequency
of the Bluetooth module is 2. 4GHz.The operation voltage is
3.3Vto5V.ThedigitalsignalsgetmodulatedduringBluetooth
transmission from Transmitter. The Bluetooth receiver in the
laptop demodulates the signal during the Bluetooth reception.
Fig 3: Identifying the spot of proper pulse When the module is paired/ connected with other devices, an
LED blinks delay of 2 sec in the Bluetooth transmitter device.
When the module is disconnected, LED blinks continuously,
which is verification to check the Bluetooth connectivity, the
digitalized signal is input to the PC associated with the
MATLAB via Bluetooth. MATLAB signals are analyzed
according to the designed code and the heart rate in terms of
‘Bits per Minute (BPM)’ along with corresponding Waveform
and temperature in terms of degree Celsius is displayed on the
monitorsimultaneously.
After the successful running of the program on MATLAB, a
figure window appears wherein the continuous plot of a pulse
is displayed. Temperature also is displayed in the window as
well as in the command window; this can be depicted in the
below fig.6.

Fig 4: Piezoelectric vibration disc

Fig 6: Time Difference Between two peaks during Heart

rate Calculation

Fig 5: Piezoelectric Vibration Sensor along with output voltage The time difference denoted as ‘T’ between the consecutive
The coding or programming of the PIC16F877A peaks is considered. The formula used to calculate heart rate is
microcontroller is more accessible because the available
instructions are less and convenient to use. The analog signals Heart rate = 60inBPM (2)
T
coming from the Vibration sensor with the voltage of 0V to

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Where, T = t2-t1 in seconds. If the time difference between the IV. CONCLUSION
peaksisvarying,thentheaveragetimedifferenceisconsidered.
Thedatawhichisstoredinthecloudcanbereviewedwhenever This paper proposes a new method of analyzing the acoustic
requiredonlyiftheloginIDandpasswordareknown.Thedata will properties of heart sounds using an electronic Stethoscope. To
be recorded along with date and time so that it is more overcome the shortfall of conventional stethoscopes, an
convenient to diagnose the problems, if any. Since therecomes electronic stethoscope based on IoT is designed and
the series of data being recorded or uploaded the doctor or the implemented. Data collected from the sensors is provided as
one who tests takes the average of the heartbeat in one minute. inputtothePICMicrocontrollerwhereintheanalogsignalsare
Thus, it is shown that remote patient monitoring is achieved as converted into digital and are transmitted to the PC via
there is no need for patients and doctors to be together. The Bluetooth module, in PC the signals are analyzed using
complete Hardware set up for Electronic Stethoscope is as MATLAB and heart rate and temperature are calculated and
shown in fig7. displayed in terms of BPM and degree Celsius respectively.
This digital information about the patient is uploaded to the
cloud, which enables long-distance communication andremote
patient monitoring. The proposed device readings correlated
very well with the actual rate by recording data samples from
various candidates. The proposed research work can be
designed using SOC (system on chip), which eliminates the
requirementofalaptop/PC.Thedesigncanbeimplementedon PCB
so that size of the device can be reduced and made still
compatible.
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