The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Ambulatory biopotential measurement
Author:	Penugonda, Lakshmi Chitra
View Online:	njit-etd2005-054 (xii, 76 pages ~ 9.0 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Biomedical Engineering
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Biomedical Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Reisman, Stanley S. (Committee chair) Bergen, Michael T. (Committee member) Alvarez, Tara L. (Committee member)
Date:	2005-05
Keywords:	Ambulatory monitoring Biopotential Patient diagnoses
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	Biopotential signals measure the electrical activity of different parts of the body. Conventional bedside monitors only provide information about the body under restricted conditions. Observation and documentation of biopotential signal during daily activities and the relation to patient symptoms may be important factors for clinical decision-making. Ambulatory monitoring helps to monitor the biopotential signal of a patient in the natural environment. The effective ambulatory system can help a physician to diagnose the patient's abnormality. In this project, a low cost and flexible ambulatory biopotential system, compared to the commercially available systems, was designed and tested. Concurrently a software program was developed for data acquisition and analysis with a Personal Data Assistant (PDA). The data was analyzed in real time using the Lab VIEW PDA. Pilot data was collected using the developed hardware during different normal activities to confirm the accuracy and reliability of the developed hardware and data was collected simultaneously from both a standard ECU machine and the developed system. It was shown that during some activities the system performed as designed, however under extreme conditions where there was more motion artifact, the number of missing R waves increased. The quality of raw ECU from the developed system was as good as the standard ECU during low motion artifact. It has been demonstrated that this newly developed biopotential system is less expensive, flexible, accurate, and more reliable than the commercially available systems and could be used in different clinical and research studies.