Anatomy and function of the heart

The heart serves as a

four-chambered pump
for the body's blood
circulatory system. The
four chambers are
names as: left atrium,
left ventricle, right
atrium and right
ventricle. The diagram
shows the route of
blood circulation (where
the red color indicates
the oxygen-rich arterial
blood while the blue
color indicates the
oxygen-poor venous
blood):
Normal ECG waveform

P-wave is produced by
muscle contraction of atria.
R-wave marks the ending
of atrial contraction and
the beginning of
ventricular contraction.
Finally, T-wave marks the
ending of ventricular
contraction. The
magnitude of the R-wave
normally ranges from 0.1
mV to 1.5 mV. A narrow
and high R-wave indicates
a physically strong heart.
The R-R interval
measures the period of
heart beat. Its inverse is the
heart rate:
The R-R interval measures the period of heart beat. Its inverse is the
heart rate:
Where HR is the heart rate measured in beat-per-minute (bpm), R-
R is the R-R interval measured in millisecond (ms).

For example, if R-R is 800 ms, the heart rate is 75 bpm. The R-R
interval should be relatively constant from beat to beat. A changing
R-R interval indicates irregular heart rate.

The P-R interval is a measure of the time from the onset of atrial
contraction to the onset of ventricular contraction. It normally ranges
from 0.12 to 0.20 second. An abnormally prolonged P-R interval
often indicates a special heart disease called "First Degree Heart
Block". The R-T interval represents the ventricular systole (muscle
contraction) and the T-R interval represents the ventricular diastole
(muscle relaxation).
Standard limb leads
In clinical ECG measurements,
four electrodes are attached to the
four limbs: left arm (LA), left leg
(LL), right arm (RA) and right leg
(RL). The electrode on RL is
usually grounded while the voltage
drop between any two of other
three electrodes are measured. In
Lead I configuration, ECG is
measured as the voltage drop from
LA to RA. In other words, LA is
connected to the positive input of
the amplifier and RA is connected
to the negative input of the
amplifier. In Lead II
configuration, ECG is measured as
the voltage drop from LL to RA,
and in Lead III configuration,
ECG is measured as the voltage
drop from LL to LA.
















AD620 instrumentation amplifier is an 8 pin Dual In-Line IC chip. The pins are
labeled from 1 to 8 with pin 1 to the left of the small notch as shown on the right
(top view).


The circuit is built around a single-chip instrumentation amplifier AD620,
manufactured by Analog Device. The AD620 is a low cost, high accuracy amplifier
which requires only one external resistor to set gain of the amplifier. The gain of
the amplifier is determined by the following formula:








Circuit on Bread Board
Attachment of Electrode