Wrist Pulse Acquisition and Recording System

Abstract

Wrist pulse signals provide rich amount of information for the health diagnosis. Traditional practitioner following Ayurveda (Ancient Indian Medicine) measures radial pulse signals using three fingers at three distinct radial pulse points identified as Vata, Pitta and Kapha and indentifies the abnormal health status accordingly. This method of diagnosis requires several years of experience. Being subjective in its nature, this approach depends upon the perception of individual practitioner as well. Hence a wrist pulse monitoring and recording system is essential to provide objectivity in measurement and to take the benefits of this ancient approach of diagnosis. This work focuses on the design and development of a novel wrist pulse acquisition and recording system. In this proposed system, three channel wrist pulse signals are acquired using pressure sensor. Signal conditioning circuit is implemented to amplify and filter the wrist pulse signals. Advance microcontroller having ARM Cortex M4 architecture is used for digitization of signals. These digitized signals are displayed on graphic color LCD for real time monitoring. Touch interface is also included for zoom-out or zoom-in purpose. Recording of the signals is done on micro SD memory card for off line processing and analysis. This system can be used for better understanding of wrist pulse signals and to train Ayurvedic practitioner for the observation of pulse signal.