International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2013)

Embedded Stethoscope
Mihir Vaidya1, Snehal Mhatre2, Madhuri Ware3, Pratik Pradhan4
1
mihirvaidya18@gmail.com
2
snehalm512@gmail.com
3
waremadhuri@gmail.com
4
pratikpradhan27690@yahoo.com

Abstract A stethoscope is an instrument used for
auscultations to convey heart sounds as well sounds in the
other parts of the body. However, traditional stethoscopes
are restricted only to audio representation of such sounds
and the diagnosis depends on the expertise of the doctor. This
project is an attempt to develop an Embedded Stethoscope to
capture heart sounds which offers better noise cancellation,
signal amplification and also added functionalities like
storage, analysis and visual representation of sound signals.
The proposed system consists of amplifier followed by a filter
for removing undesired frequencies. It is then amplified
using power amplifier and this analog signal is converted to
digital using the C2000 High Performance 32 bit
microcontroller. For visual representation, heart sounds will
then be displayed on graphic LCD and also stored on
embedded flash memory of the controller. Hence we aim at
developing a prototype which offers a low power replacement
to the traditional stethoscope which will aid physicians as an
effective diagnostic tool.
Keywords: - Digital Stethoscope, C2000, Heart Sounds,
Bio Medical.
I. INTRODUCTION
The stethoscope is a medical device for listening to
internal sounds such as heart sounds and lung sounds.
Using a stethoscope, the doctor can hear normal and
abnormal respiratory, cardiac, pleural, arterial sounds.
Stethoscopes are of two types acoustic and digital. The
current practice among physicians is to use an acoustic
stethoscope. This technique is very subjective because the
records provided could be interpreted in several ways
depending on how the physician interprets the sounds [2].
A digital stethoscope on the other hand has digital noise
filters to remove environmental noise and display proper
heart sounds and murmurs. The digital stethoscope can be
interfaced with computers using modern technologies and
makes possible the storage and proper analysis of the
recorded sounds. Thus a digital stethoscope has many
advantages over the traditionally used acoustic
stethoscopes. The design discussed in the paper consists of
a front end circuit to capture the heart sounds, a
microcontroller to process the heart sounds and graphic
LCD for display.
The front end circuit consists of an amplifier which
amplifies the sounds of the body making them easier to
hear. This type of stethoscopes have an noise filter, which
blocks unwanted surrounding noise and passes only
appropriate sounds. Noise filter selects only specific
sounds and adjusts higher and lowers frequencies. This
will be ideal choice for an environment which
overcrowded by lots of patients creating unwanted noise.
II. HEART S OUNDS AND HEART MURMURS
An important diagnostic tool is the analysis of the
heart sounds normally produced by various mechanical
activities of the heart during the heart cycle. Heart sounds
are caused by variation of pressure of blood flowing inside
heart through various veins and due to opening and closing
of valves. The two normal sounds of heart are the first
(also known as Lub or S1) and the second (also known as
Dub or S2). There also exist two extra heart sounds known
as third and fourth sounds. The first sound occurs
primarily because of closing of bicuspid and tricuspid
valves. The closing of valves occur due to contraction of
ventricles. This marks the onset of systole. It causes
pulmonic and aortic valves to open and the blood is forced
into arteries. The first sound occurs in the frequency range
of 30 Hz - 45 Hz. The second sound caused due to closure
of the semilunar valves (the aortic valve and pulmonary
valve). The closing of semilunar valves occur as the
pressure in the arteries is greater than pressure in
ventricles. This marks the end of systole i.e. beginning of
diastole and it occurs at frequency range of 50Hz 70Hz
with high pitch. The third sound occurs after S2 i.e. at the
beginning of diastole. It is usually heard in young adults,
children and sometimes during pregnancy but if it occurs
in later adult life then it is considered to be an abnormal
heart sound. The third heart sound is caused by vibration
of the ventricular walls. It is caused by sudden rush of
blood from arties to ventricles. The third heart sound is
low in frequency (about 30Hz or below) and low intensity.
The fourth sound occurs just after atrial contraction at the
end of diastole and immediately before S1. The fourth
sound is also low in frequency and intensity. Thus, the
heart sound information can be related as follows:[2]

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2013)
First sound mitral valve closure and tricuspid valve Microcontroller: The microcontroller used in the system
closure belongs to the C2000 Piccolo microcontroller family. The
controller used is the C2000 TMSF28027x. It is a high
Second sound aortic and pulmonary valves closure performance microcontroller with a 32 bit processor. It has
a 12 bit ADC and 32 kB Flash memory. The use of this
controller makes it possible to get real time digital values
Third sound termination of ventricular filling
of the input analog signal and enable storage of waveforms
without the use of external memory. The Code Composed
Fourth sound atria contract Studio is used as a IDE for the C2000 controller.

III. S YSTEM ARCHITECTURE Graphic LCD: Graphic LCD is used for visual
A. System Overview representation of heart sounds as it can display pixels and
The proposed system contains a microphone not just characters which will aid physicians for proper
embedded in a chest piece which acts as a transducer to diagnosis. A serial Graphic LCD will be used which has
acquire the heart signals. The captured signal is then excellent monochrome display along with LED backlight
processed through a highly precise amplifier and a low and SPI interface.
pass filter. The processed signal is then connected to a
high performance microcontroller which has an inbuilt IV. IMPLEMENTATION
Analog to Digital convertor. The digital output is then
plotted on a graphic LCD. The system block diagram is as A. Front End Pick Up Circuit
shown below:
The following circuits are simulated using proteus:
Microphone

Figure 1: System Overview

Front End Circuit: The microphone is used to capture the

heart sounds. The microphone used should have a high
sensitivity as well as good frequency response to detect Figure 3: Stethoscope diaphragm with microphone
low frequency sounds. The microphone can pick up
Pre Amplifier: A pre-amplifier circuit for gain of 31 using
ambient noise so it has to be shielded. Thus a condenser
opa335.
microphone is selected for the project.

Figure 2: Front end circuit

The output of microphone is fed to the pre-amplifier

circuit which provides initial gain. Then a low pass filter is
used for separating heart sounds along with murmurs from
the surrounding noise. The final gain is provided by the Figure 4: Proteus Schematics of Pre-Amplifier
Variable gain amplifier, whose output is fed to the ADC of
the microcontroller. The output of low pass filter is also Low Pass Filter: A Sallen Key, Chebyshev 1dB low pass
given to the Head Phone Amplifier for obtaining audible filter with cut off frequency of 600Hz is designed using
heart sounds. FilterPro.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2013)

B. Low Pass Filter Output

Figure 5: Proteus Schematics of Low Pass Filter

Variable Gain Amplifier: A variable gain amplifier for

maximum gain of 101 is designed using opamp.
Figure 9: Simulation output of Low Pass Filter at 400Hz

Figure 6: Proteus Schematics of Variable Gain Amplifier

B. ADC Code Algorithm

Figure 10: Simulation output of Low Pass Filter at

800Hz

C. Variable Gain Output

Figure 7: ADC code algorithm Figure 11: Simulation output of Variable Gain Amplifier

IV. RESULTS C. Controller Output

The results obtained are:

A. Pre Amplifier Output

Figure 12: Output of C2000 controller in Code

Composer Studio

Figure 8: Hardware output of Pre-Amplifier

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2013)
V. C ONCLUSION

In this project heart sounds will be acquired, displayed

and stored enabling physicians to diagnose and
differentiate between normal and abnormal heart sounds.
The noise cancellation and signal amplification is provided
by the front end circuitry. This analog signal is then
converted to digital using microcontroller C2000
TMSF28027x and finally displayed on Graphic LCD.

REFERENCES

[1] www.ti.com/medical/digital stethoscope (Digital

Stethoscope Model).
[2] Ashish Harsola, Sushil Thale, M.S. Panse, Digital
Stethoscope for Heart Sounds, 2nd International
Conference on Emerging Trends in Technology, 2011.
[3] Kyle Jamar, Electronic Stethoscope, University Of
Wisconsin Madison: Department Of Biomedical
Engineering, December 14, 2011.
[4] Mr She Renyou Roston, Digital Stethoscope, SIM
University,May 11, 2009.
[5] R.S.Khandpur Handbook biomedical instrumentation, 2nd
Edition, Tata McGraw Hill publication, 1990
[6] Epstein EJ. Heart sounds. In: Cardiac Auscultation. Oxford,
England: Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd.; 1991:24-44.

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