ECG Signal Processing on FPGA for Emerging Telehealthcare Applications

Bangladesh is projected to have a population of approximately 177.8 million in 2026 and is the eighth most populous country in the world \cite. Heart disease is a growing public health and medical problem and is the leading cause of mortality in Bangladesh. Heart diseases is a non-communicable disease. The Health and Morbidity Status Survey (HMSS)-2025 is conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) 31.32 per 1,000 population reported heart disease in the 90 days before their survey whereas their target group was rural and urban areas \cite. According to WHO, deaths per 100000 population ischaemic heart disease in 2021, female was 50.2 percent and in male was 67.6 percent \cite. The world heart observatory shows that overall number of deaths from CVD(2021) is 377,200 \cite{b4}. Risk factors such as lifestyle, habit, diet, smoking and air pollution can have a significant impact on people’s cardiovascular health. There are different breakdowns age, sex, location etc. According to United Nations Population Division’s World Urbanization Prospects, World Bank, approximately 67 percent (2025) of total population of Bangladesh lives in rural areas \cite. In those areas, there are lack of services such as education, health clinics and adequate roads particularly road links to hospitals. As a result of health problems or natural disasters, they are at risk of sliding deeper into poverty. This project helps to remove communication cost and the fees of doctors. It also removes the cost of ECG test. Early diagnosis and treatment are crucial to ensure sustainable medical treatment and improved survival rates. ECG test and analysis is an important means to understand the functionality of heart, diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases and asses various treatments. However, most of the captured ECG signal will be distorted by power line interference noise, base line wander noise, electrode contact noise, motion artifacts, muscle contractions (EMG), baseline drift and ECG amplitude modulation with respiration, noise generated by electronic devices, electrosurgical noise and composite noise. If the noise mask the ECG signal and the signal become distorted then it is hard to be processed the ECG signal for further analysis. It is need to filter the ECG signals to avoid the failure detection of the signal. This project aims for implementation of Low Pass Equiripple FIR digital filter on FPGA that can remove the noise in ECG signal and also establish a unit of mobile telecare environment for rural people. Digital filter is used to filter the noise in ECG signal. Implementation option that satisfies the requirement on flexibility and portability such as speed enhancement and hardware cost. The output of ECG signal is compared with the ECG signal before filtering by plotting the signal in time and frequency domain using MATLAB. Since may current FPGA architectures are in-system programmable, the configuration of the device may be changed to implement different functionality if required. Highly adaptable and design-flexibility, FPGAs provide optimal device utilization through conservation of board space and system power important advantages not available with many stand-alone DSP chips. Bangladesh faces the challenge of ensuring health care, especially in the rural areas, plagued with resource shortage, inadequate ambulances, lack of medical equipment, existing medical equipment not in service and shortages of doctors. Early diagnosis and treatment are crucial to ensure sustainable medical treatment and improved survival rates. Emergency First Aid Center with physical and telemedicine serves as a promising cost-effective alternative in light of the fact that an early, tailored intervention has been shown to prevent deaths and improve functional recovery. Tele-ECG is a convenient tool to distinguish individuals with suspected heart diseases that may require urgent referral to a hospital or even emergency medical services. It utilizes m-Health technology, which involves the use of mobile phones for data transmission, so as to provide health care services to remote areas.