Design of an FPGA-Based ECG Signal Analysis System
Shyamala C
ECG signals are very small in amplitude and are easily affected by noise, which can make heart-rate measurement and R-peak detection unreliable. In this paper, a real-time ECG acquisition and processing system is developed using the Nexys A7 FPGA to achieve accurate and fast cardiac monitoring. The ECG signal is collected through surface electrodes and conditioned using the AD8232 module, then digitized with the Artix-7 XADC. A 0.5–40 Hz bandpass filter is applied to remove noise and baseline drift. R-peaks are detected using an adaptive thresholding method combined with an exponential moving average and a refractory period, ensuring reliable detection. The heart rate is calculated from RR-intervals and displayed on the onboard 7-segment display, while the processed ECG signal is converted back to analog for oscilloscope observation. The results show that the FPGA-based system provides accurate ECG processing with low delay, making it suitable for portable and embedded cardiac monitoring applications.