Abdulwaheed Musa and Abdullateef Ibrahim

Keywords: Pulse oximeter, human heart, low cost, monitoring, electrical impulse

Abstract

Pulse oximetry is a noninvasive method for monitoring a person’s oxygen saturation. It is an electronic device and instrument that measures the electrical impulse of the of human heart and the number of beats per minute at which the heart pumps blood into the body. An average man, school or hospital should be able to easily afford a pulse oximeter for personal, teaching and emergency purposes, respectively. This is not the case due to the cost of this device and this is the reason this project was embarked upon. This work builds a low power, low cost, reliable and non-invasive monitoring device that accurately measures the level of SPO2 and pulse rate in the blood of a patient or an individual. LM358 was used in this project and the electrodes in the transmitter senses the heart electrical impulse and sends the information to a receiver in the form of a watch, to obtain and record results which were found to be accurate and within normal range and standards. The results and readings are as obtained from some patients in the medical ward of University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital. This type of proximity device is essential for a patient suffering from hypertension, asthma and other various heart diseases. In spite of the successful design and construction of the device, battery failure (life cycle), deterioration of the components, among others, are some of the challenges associated with the device. Recommendations on how to improve the system have been given.