Agilent 5990-5899EN Generating Complex ECG Patterns with an Arbitrary Waveform Generator c20140905 [5] free download

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Keysight Technologies Generating Complex ECG Patterns with an Arbitrary Waveform Generator Measurement Tips Volume 10, Number 3 Application Note Introduction Using an electrocardiogram (ECG) is an invaluable way to identify various physical ailments. To conduct an ECG, medical personnel place leads on a patient's skin and measure the electrical activity of the heart over one beat cycle. The outputs of the leads are combined to create an ECG signal. Variations in the signal amplitude and timing provide indications of various ailments such as myocardial infarction, hypocalcaemia, and emphysema. Today there is a wide array of cardiac equipment that displays and interprets ECG signal patterns. Medical equipment designers need a lexible way to seamlessly generate accurate ECG signal patterns to verify and test their designs. In this measurement brief, we will discuss how to generate complex ECG signal patterns with an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG). Snapshot A maker of cardiac monitoring equipment needed to test its latest design's ability to capture and interpret ECG signals. The company's design engineers wanted to simulate gradually changing sequences of normal and abnormal ECG signals to test and tune the design's input signal condit-ioning hardware and the irmware interpretation algorithms to ensure their design did not produce false positives or life-threatening false negatives. To simulate the ECG signals, the engineers used the Keysight Technologies, Inc. 33521A function/arbitrary waveform generator. They chose the 33521A because of its arbitrary waveform sequencing feature. This feature allowed them to seamlessly switch across various ECG signals stored in arbitrary waveform memory. With this functionality, they were able to simulate the gradual onset of various ECG signal abnormalities without any discontinuities in their test. Also, the 33521A's 1-million-point arbitrary waveform memory allowed them to store a large library of various ECG signals. ECG waveform A typical 12-lead ECG waveform is shown in Figure 1. The example ECG waveforms used later in this measurement brief Key waves and intervals are labeled. were based on the 33521A's built-in ECG waveform, which is shown in Figure 2. An easy way to create a whole library of different ECG QRS waveforms is to combine method 1 and 2 or method 3 and 2 together. Complex You can access and manipulate the points in the built-in ECG waveform (method 3) to