Walk Together - Progress Report 1

Progress Report 1

Heartbeat Analyzer for Home Use

team WalkTogether

10th March 2009

Current project progress:

          As the project schedule to be complete by 3rd week of April 2009 based on our previously proposed Gantt chart, which can be seen on last page of this progress report.Until now, we completed the project circuit design including heartbeat detection circuit,microcontroller circuit and display circuit part. For the whole circuit, 2 microcontrollers will be used, that is PIC16F877A use for heartbeat detection and PIC18F452 use to do the calculation, analyze heartbeat and interface with LCD display.
          For the heartbeat detection part, we use microcontroller PIC16F877A to process and detect heartbeat signal, including process and filter the noise of the signal and the ability to detect correct heartbeat signal pattern. This part is considered done with minor troubleshooting can be done from time to time to make it better.
          We are now in the process of testing and doing the microcontroller (PIC18F452) interface with 16x2 characters LCD display (RT1602C) and scheduled to be complete in this week. After finish the display part, we will proceed next week with microcontroller (PIC18F452) programming, to perform the calculation on heartbeat signal, check for any heartbeat abnormal and calculate heartbeat rate.

Problem encounter:

i. To save cost, initial suggestion is to use 2 microcontroller PIC16F877A. But after encounter with 1 of the microcontroller need to perform heavy calculation, analyze heartbeat, store data and interface with LCD display which consume very big program memory. 1 of the microcontroller PIC16F877A (16kb memory) which have lower memory have to change to PIC18F452 (64kb memory).

ii. LCD display screen have limited character can be display at one time, 16 x 2 characters maximum at one time. Hence, a way has to figure out to display all the necessary result to the user.

iii. Voltage supply +9v and

Budget status:
–9v will be needed to run the heartbeat analyzer device. Which mean 2 battery will be used, 1 for supply +9v and another battery to supply 9v. The battery used to supply +9v drain more current and energy than the anotherbattery that supply -9v. Which is not balance as 1 battery consumes more current. Ifpossible, we will try to make the device run with 1 battery only, minimize quantity ofbattery and save cost.
The totals spent until now stand at RM170.90. With all the components already bought, estimate another RM30.00 will be needed to develop the prototype. Which the project budget is still on our proposed budget.