Integrated Wearable System for Monitoring Heart Rate and Step during Physical Activity

This paper integrates a heart rate (HR) monitoring system with step counter for use during physical activities. Novel step counter algorithm has been developed to enable the highly accurate detection of step. The proposed system comprises a wireless wearable device, a smartphone, and a remote server. Data transmission between a wearable device and a smartphone is conducted via Bluetooth low energy (BLE). An indirect contact measurement method has also been devised to eliminate the need for direct contact electrodes and likelihood of skin irritation. The proposed system is compact, lightweight, and comfortable to wear. A smartphone application provides the interface for the display of data related to HR, step count (SC), exercise intensity, speed, distance, and calories burned, as well as waveforms related to ECG and step cycle. ECG peak detection algorithm achieved accuracy of 99.7% using the MIT-BIH ST Change Database. Accuracy of 98.89% was achieved for HR and 98.96% for SC at treadmill speeds of 1.8 to 9.0 km/h.