2020 International Conference on Assistive and Rehabilitation Technologies (iCareTech)

Blood Pressure Monitoring Using Arduino-Android Platform

2020 International Conference on Assistive and Rehabilitation Technologies (iCareTech) | 978-1-7281-9782-1/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/iCareTech49914.2020.00024

Ezzaldeen Edwan, Mohammed Abu-Musameh, Abedelrahman Alsabah

Engineering Program Department
Palestine Technical College - Deir El-Balah
Deir El-Balah, Palestine
ezedwan@ptcdb.edu.ps, eng.mhmd97s@gmail.com, aaalsabah1981@gmail.com

Abstract— Increased blood pressure (BP) in the arteries is a This paper is organized as follows: Section II reviews important
common condition that leads to heart diseases and cardiovascular related work and research on BP measurement. Section III
diseases. Therefore, an accurate measurement of BP is vital for the presents the components of the system. Section IV presents the
prevention and treatment of these diseases, especially in operation of the system and its analysis. Section V presents the
hypertensive patients. Complications of untreated high blood
implemented system as hardware showing its schematic
pressure (HBP) might be heart attack, stroke, or kidney damage.
It has no obvious symptoms or warning signs and therefore it is diagram, flowcharts and the implemented system. Section VI
often called "the silent killer". The traditional manual BP monitor describes the experimental results of the systems and analyzes
is difficult to use by ordinary persons and it requires the expertise it. Section VII concludes the paper.
of a specialist. The lack of these devices in every home prevents
many patients from checking blood pressure regularly. In this II. RELATED WORKS
paper, we describe our developed BP monitoring system, which We review here some of the research related to BP
integrates the Arduino board as an open-source computer measurement. The most common method for finding BP in
hardware/software platform with the Android smartphone. The automatic devices is through oscillometric pressure waveforms
system is based on the oscillometric pressure waveforms method which relies on a pressure sensor combined with the inflatable
and it is combined with a Bluetooth module that transfers data to cuff. In [3], the researchers describe their designed noninvasive
a mobile application. Therefore, users can get information about
digital BP device using pressure gauge MPX5050GP. Signal
their blood pressure on the smartphone easily and get acquainted
filtering is done with hardware circuit. In [4], the researchers
with their health conditions regularly. This system can be
integrated into other devices such as ventilators because it is an
investigate the shape differences of the oscillometric pulse
open-source and there is a growing demand for the manufacturing waveform between standard cuff inflation and deflation. Their
of these devices locally. Experimental results are promising with study of oscillometric waveform differences during BP
BP measurement accuracy close to the reference values. measurement suggest that arteries may behave differently during
cuff inflation and deflation. In [5], the researchers assess three
Keywords— Blood Pressure Monitoring; Mobile Application; different algorithms for finding BP through the oscillometric
Arduino Platform. method.
Other methods might rely on photoplethysmogram (PPG)
I. INTRODUCTION techniques. A clinical-controlled evaluation of several Pulse
With the advancement of modern science and technology, more Transit Time (PTT) techniques is performed in [6]. Using
and more people started to take care of their health. One of the different signal type pairs such as electrocardiogram (ECG),
most common ways to manage self-health care is through PPG, and invasive blood pressure (IBP), the researchers
regular measurement of blood pressure (BP). High blood concluded that the PTT techniques are not ready to measure BP
pressure (HBP) [Hypertension] is described as a "silent killer” where the smallest mean error is 4.91 mmHg ECG and IBP's [6].
An effective function based on the relationship between systolic
because the original cause is unknown and has no symptoms on
blood pressure and pulse wave velocity (PWV) is developed in
the patient. HBP can cause various complications which might
[7]. PWV is obtained from PTT produced by ECG and PPG and
lead to many other diseases, such as heart diseases, blindness, they concluded with the important relationship between PWV
kidneys, and stroke to death. According to the World Health and systolic pressure. However, the error recorded after the
Organization (WHO) HBP can attack anyone, and different age comparison with the mercury sphygmomanometer (auditory
groups. Also, it has a social and economic effects. It is method) was 20 mmHg [7]. In [8] a BP measurement system
estimated that HBP causes 7.5 million deaths worldwide, or using PPG technology is developed. The system proved to be
about 12.8% of all deaths in 2004 [1]. People with hypertension reliable although the error was 4 mmHg when compared to a
should conduct regular BP measurements to check their health mercury sphygmomanometer [8].
status and perform a medical review, because BP is a vital sign In this work, we use the oscillometric pressure method, as it has
that changes over time. proven to be reliable compared with other approaches, to
BP is the pressure within the major arterial system of the body. develop a BP monitoring system paired with a smartphone
It is usually expressed in terms of systolic BP (SBP) and application so BP can be measured anywhere.
diastolic BP (DBP). Systolic pressure is the maximum blood
pressure during contraction of the ventricles; diastolic pressure III. SYSTEM COMPONENTS
is the minimum pressure recorded just prior to the next The PB measurement platform is composed of two parts: a
contraction [2]. hardware part, which is the BP measuring circuit, and a software

978-1-7281-9782-1/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE 87

DOI 10.1109/iCareTech49914.2020.00024

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part, which is the Arduino code and the Android app. The ISP flash memory with read-while-write capabilities, 1 KB
hardware constitutes of an Arduino board, an air pump, an air EEPROM, 2 KB SRAM, 23 general purpose I/O lines, 32
valve, an inflatable cuff, a pressure sensor, an amplifier circuit, general purpose working registers. The device operates between
a liquid crystal display (LCD) and a Bluetooth module. Block 1.8-5.5 volts.
diagram of the system is shown in Figure 1. To control the
physical components and to acquire sensory signal an Arduino B. Pressure Sensor
Uno board was selected due to its simplicity. The used pressure sensor is the PSG010 manufactured by
SIMST. According to the manufacturer it is a low-cost sensor.
Moreover, it is MEMS technology-based sensor and it has high
reliability. It has pressure range of 0 - 5.8 psi (40kpa). Its input
impedance is 4 - 6 Kȍ and its output voltage is 50 - 100 mV and
it requires a power supply of 5 V.
C. Air pump
The air pump is the KPM27v mini air pump manufactured by
KOGE. It has a small size and requires low power. It operates
with high accuracy, low leakage and low noise. Rated life is
50000 cycles and the maximum drawn current is below 410 mA.
D. Air Valve:
The Valve is an electronic device for air discharge. It requires a
power supply of 6 Volt and operates on a pressure 0-350 mmHg.
Figure 1: Block diagram of a proposed BP measurement platform The life test is more than 200000 times. Power consumption is
0.4-0.7 W and the maximum drawn current is less than 60 mA.
The air pump is used to inflate the cuff and the valve is used to
regulate inflation and deflation. The pressure sensor measures E. LCD Modules:
the pressure inside the cuff by producing a voltage signal that LCD modules are used in embedded projects because it is cheap
reflects the pressure and oscillation of the compressed artery. An and being a programmer friendly. The controller of LCD is
operational amplifier is needed to amplify the sensor signal. The
Hitachi HD44780 and it operates on a voltage of 5V. It is
amplified signal is acquisitioned by the Arduino. A software
code on the Arduino processes the signal and performs basic essential to show the status of measurement and the final
computation to estimate the mean arterial pressure (MAP) and measured value of BP.
from its value the systolic and diastolic blood pressure values F. HC-05 Bluetooth Modules:
can be extracted. The MAP is defined as the average BP in a
HC-05 modules are an easy to use Bluetooth SPP (Serial Port
person’s arteries during one cardiac cycle and is considered a
Protocol) module, designed for transparent wireless serial
better indicator of perfusion to vital organs [9]. Figure 2 shows
connection setup, we use it to transfer result data to smartphone.
the air pump and the valve used in the implementation part.
It has v2.0+EDR protocol, 2.4GHz ISM band frequency and
requires power supply of +3.3V and 50mA.
IV. SYSTEM OPERATION AND ANALYSIS
A. System Analysis
Software development life cycle (SDLC) is a framework or a
process used in the development of any software system. It aims
to produce a high-quality software that meets or exceeds
customer expectations. There are many different models’
specific lifecycles such as spiral model and prototyping model.
B. System Operation
The Arduino Uno operates both the pump and the valve until the
air blows into the inflatable cuff to generate pressure on the arm.
Figure 2: Basic components of the system during testing process The BP is sensed by the SIMST PSG010 pressure sensor.
Consecutive readings of the sensor are recorded at a constant
A. Microcontroller (ATmega328): sampling rate during inflation and deflation. Finally, the results
Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based are displayed on the device screen and if the smart phone is
on a simple I/O board and a development environment that connected to the device via the Bluetooth unit, this data is
implements the Processing/Wiring language. Most Arduino transferred to the smartphone and stored there. It should be clear
boards consist of an Atmel 8-bit AVR microcontroller. The that our developed automated BP measurement device measures
Atmel 8-bit AVR RISC-based microcontroller combines 32 KB only the MAP unlike the manual BP measurement devices
which measure the systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP).

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In automatic Sphygmomanometers SBP and DBP values can be is paired with the device. The application stores a record of BP
derived as indicative from the MAP. Figure 3 shows a flowchart to have a trend for its variation over time. Moreover, mobile app
for system operation. commands the electronic pressure device. The elements of the
project are shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Elements of the project

A. Schematic circuit of the system

Figure 5 demonstrates the schematic circuit of the designed BP
measurement system. It is designed on a PCB board. The circuit
consists of a pressure sensor (SIMST PSG010s), an operational
amplifier (LM358), a Bluetooth module, a transistor (BD711),
an LCD and other passive elements. The schematic diagram is
shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Schematic circuit project

Figure 6 shows the layout of the complementary circuit

connected to the Arduino board.

Figure 6. PCB layout of the circuit

Figure 3. Flowchart of the system operation

B. Connecting Arduino to Android
The connection between the Arduino and the Android is
V. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION important to enable the user to pair his smartphone to the
To measure BP, the user or hypertension patient, runs the device pressure device via Bluetooth connection to store measurements
alone or he runs the project application on the smartphone which on the smartphone.

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C. Signal processing
The BP signal after being amplified by the operational amplifier
is fed to the analog input of the analog to digital converter ADC
of the Arduino board. To determine the MAP from the BP signal
we should extract the oscillometric pressure pulse waveform
from the cuff pressure. The MAP value is the value of cuff
pressure at the maximal oscillometric pulsation during deflation
(or inflation) of the cuff. To extract it we need to use a band pass
filter. We use a finite impulse response filter (FIR) because of
its simple implementation as a digital filter and the features it
has such as having a linear phase. Figure 7 shows a typical cuff
pressure signal in deflation phase and Figure 8 shows the
bandpass filtered signal that represents the extracted
oscillometric pressure pulse waveform. Figure 9: BP measurement using the actual implemented platform.

Figure 10 shows mobile app user interface of the BP

measurement platform.

Figure 7: Example of cuff pressure signal in deflation phase

Figure 10: Mobile app user interface of BP measurement platform

VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

To validate the functionality, we compare the computed MAP
from our developed system with the MAP of a reference device.
The MAP of a reference device is computed from the manual
auscultatory SBP and DBP values which were obtained during
both cuff inflation and deflation. The used reference device is
Mercury sphygmomanometer (diplomat-presameter®)
manufactured by Rudolf Riester GmbH. Equation (1) is used to
compute the reference MAP from the SBP and DBP reference
values.
Figure 8: Extracted oscillometric pulse signal ‫ ܲܣܯ‬ൌ  ሺܵ‫ ܲܤ‬൅ ʹ ൈ ‫ܲܤܦ‬ሻȀ͵ (1)
D. Taking measurement of BP A. Experimental results
After the application runs successfully, the application starts to We show experimental results of five male subjects aged from
work accurately. The blood pressure of the device is measured 32 to 50 years. The participants provided their consent for
after the inflatable cuff is placed on the arm and the device is measuring and recording their SBP and DBP data. We compute
turned on, and the readings are stored in the application. When the MAP for reference data according to (1). We compare only
the phone is connected to Bluetooth. Figure 9 demonstrates the the MAP values because it is the value which can be found from
BP measurement using the actual implemented platform. the extracted oscillometric pulse signal. We computed the
percentage error between the reference MAP and the MAP from
our developed system and tabulated results in Table I.

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Experimental results show harmony between both MAP values
and the worst error value in our developed system was 6.17%.

TABLE I. COMPARISON OF READINGS TAKEN FROM MANUAL DEVICE

AND PROTOTYPE DEVICE.

Manual BP Monitoring %
Age Device (Reference) Dev.
Sub. MAP
(Yrs.) MAP
SBP DBP MAP Error
1 50 120 80 93.33 91.16 2.38

2 46 122 80 94 93.74 0.28

3 46 134 92 106 102.85 2.97

4 32 120 70 86.67 92.02 6.17

5 46 130 80 96.67 101.48 4.98

VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we described the development of an automated
open-source low-cost system for BP measurement to reduce
the difficulties that patients encounter while conducting
measurement. As the system provides raw data, it can be
suitable as an experimental platform for developing
algorithms that extracts BP value from raw sensory data.
Moreover, it might fit the demand for equipping ventilators
with BP devices. Pairing the developed device with Arduino
allows for storing the data and transferring it to physicians to
follow up their patients.
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