Journal of Basic and Applied Research International

Since oxygen is the most important element for human to continue living, an effective low-cost device is needed to monitor oxygen levels in the human blood. Pulse Oximeter is a medical electronic instrument that measures oxygen saturation (SaO₂) of arterial blood and pulse rate by non-invasive techniques. It is a medical device that allows for a rapid detection of hypoxemic events that could potentially be fatal. Lack of sufficient oxygen in blood tends to cause Hypoxemia which is an abnormally low concentration of oxygen in the blood. This project report covers the basic principles of pulse oximetry and focuses on the hardware implementation of pulse oximeter design. The concept of Pulse Oximetry was introduced followed by an overview of techniques commonly used for design of pulse Oximeter. Software simulation using Matlab/simulink software as well as circuit development toolkits were used to test the validity of pulse oximetry concepts. A hardware model was then developed using PIC 16F877A in order to realize the proposed design. The results of the hardware produced in this project exhibits the process and operation of pulse oximetry but does not show highly accurate readings mainly due to hardware limitations and ambient noise.