Design of an equipment for acquisition and processing of the electrocardiogram and breathing signals for the analysis of heart rate variability

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a prototype of a portable equipment for acquiring and processing the electrocardiogram and breathing signals for the analysis of heart rate variability. The equipment has been mainly designed to analyze the relationship between breathing to different frequencies and beat-to-beat heart rate variability. The equipment consists of a module of hardware and software for the acquisition of the electrocardiogram and breathing signals and a second module of software for processing both signals. This software was developed by using graphical programming based on the LabVIEW platform. The architecture, design criteria and test results of the designed equipment are presented. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.