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Simulation of ECG, blood pressure and ballistocardiographic signals

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Abstract

The blood flow in human arterial system can be considered as a fluid dynamics problem. Simulation of blood flow will provide a better understanding of the physiology of human body. Simulation studies of blood flow in the diseased condition can help to diagnose the health problem easily and also have many applications in the areas such as surgical planning and design of medical devices. This paper presents a synthetic electrocardiogram (ECG), blood pressure signals (BP) and ballistocardiographic signal (BCG). Dynamical models of electrocardiogram and cardiovascular system are important in medicine because they can be used as approximation of the real patient. An example is the Windkessel model, which is often used for simulation. ECG, BP and BCG signals can be generated with different sampling frequencies, with different noise levels, with different shapes, filters etc. The paper is based on real data (Real data and identification methods can be used to create models), which are then used for models based on coupled oscillators. Models of the above-mentioned signals are generated by a microcontroller, which allows easy control and adjustment of the output signal and other experiments. The presented paper describes a device that was developed and used for educational purposes, especially for biomedical engineering.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Department of Electronics and Information Technology, University of West Bohemia, Plzen, Czech Republic and by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under the project OP VVV Electrical Engineering Technologies with High-Level of Embedded Intelligence, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/18_069/ 0009855 and by the Internal Grant Agency of University of West Bohemia in Plzen, the project SGS-2018-001.

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Correspondence to Milan Stork.

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Stork, M. Simulation of ECG, blood pressure and ballistocardiographic signals. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 108, 111–117 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-021-01830-1

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