ELEC 243 Lab

Pulse Oximeter

Pulse oximetry provides a measurement of pulse rate and blood oxygen concentration. It works by measuring the absorbtion of light of two different wavelengths (red and infrared) passing through a site with good blood flow, typically a finger tip or ear lobe.
Requirements

  1. Your system should measure and display pulse rate (in BPM) and SpO2 (in percent).
  2. The system should require no special preparation. In particular, it should function in normal ambient lighting.
Background and Resources

  1. A brief description of pulse oximetry may be found at oximeter.org.
  2. Detailed information on building a pulse oximeter using the MSP430 microcontroller may be found in Texas Instruments Application Note SLAA274
  3. Nellcore compatible finger probes will be available. Although these are intended to be disposable, you should reuse them as long as possible as the supply is limited.
Evaluation

  1. Your system must provide an accurate and stable indication of pulse and a plausable estimate of SpO2.
  2. The user interface and ease of use will be evaluated.