Development and Experimental Validation of a Low-Cost Modular Platform for Cardiac Pacemaker Signal Generation and Acquisition

Commercial pacemaker (PCM) analyzers are often expensive, proprietary, and difficult to adapt for experimental biomedical research and educational applications. This work presents a low-cost modular platform for the generation, acquisition, and real-time analysis of pacemaker-related electrical signals. The proposed system consists of two independent printed circuit boards: a digital-to-analog (DAC) board for generation of controlled atrial and ventricular test waveforms and an analog-to-digital (ADC) board for multi-channel signal acquisition and wireless data transmission. A dedicated Qt-based desktop application provides real-time visualization and storage of the acquired signals. Experimental validation was performed using a single commercial dual-chamber pacemaker operating in the DDD mode. For the DAC subsystem, pacing-rate errors remained below 2% over the investigated range of 60–120 BPM, with coefficients of determination exceeding 0.99998 between programmed and measured pacing rates. The ADC subsystem demonstrated relative amplitude errors ranging from 0.96% to 7.19% over the investigated input range of −1000 to −2000 mV. For a programmed atrioventricular delay of 200 ms, the ADC-derived delay was 205.53 ± 1.24 ms, corresponding to a relative error of 2.77%. Combined DAC–ADC operation further demonstrated generation of a controlled atrial test signal, pacemaker sensing and ventricular pacing response, and subsequent acquisition of the response by the ADC subsystem. The developed platform provides a configurable and modular experimental environment in which signal generation and acquisition can be operated either independently or jointly. Its low implementation cost, wireless data transmission, and customizable hardware and software architecture make it suitable for laboratory research, education, and prototype development involving cardiac pacing systems.