Saturday, March 22, 2014: In a small but important step in developing electronic devices for domestic needs, C-DAC Mohali has developed a wireless digital stethoscope. The device works with a wired headset as well as with a Bluetooth. The heartbeat analysed through the device can be displayed on a mobile handset and the data can be stored on a laptop. Compared to a commercially available digital stethoscope, that costs about Rs 60,000, C-DAC developed digital stethoscope will cost around Rs 6,000 (prototype) plus Rs 2,000 for the Bluetooth headset.
The key features of the wireless digital stethoscope:
•Picks up sounds directly from the body surface
•Improves low frequency sounds characteristics through the use of advance filtering technique
•Audio frequency band for heart and lung sounds:20 Hz to 320 Hz
•Op Amp Gain: 40dB
•Sampling rate: 4KHz with Sample Averaging
•Wireless transmission over Bluetooth
•Power supply: 3.6 V Chargeable Battery with on board charging
•MCU based volume control
•Analog output port for headphone
•Battery life: 100 hours of continuous power operation
•Handheld portable device
•Supported by Mobile application to capture wireless data and plot the graph of acoustic signal from heart and lungs
The trials of the device are presently underway. Technology transfer process is also likely to start shortly. Interested parties may contact
DK Jain, executive director, Telemedicine LAB & Bio-Medical, C-DAC, Mohali (dkjain@cdac.in)
