The Programmable ECG Simulator

This paper reports the design and development of Digital Signal Controller (DSPIC)-based ECG simulator intended to use in testing, calibration and maintenance of electrocardiographic equipment, and to support biomedical engineering students’ education. It generates all 12 healthy ECG derivation signals having a profile that varies with heart rate, amplitude, and different noise contamination in a manner which reflects true in vivo conditions. The heart rate can be set at the range of 30 to 120 beats/minute in four steps. The noise and power line interference effects can be set at the range of 0 to 20 dB in three steps. Since standard commercially available electronic components were used to construct the prototype simulator, the proposed design was also relatively inexpensive to produce.