AUTOMATED

EXTERNAL
DEFIBRILLATOR

PROJECT REPORT

By: Team 21
Makkena Lakshmi Priya
Suchana Marick
Shubham Sarraf
Abhishek Anand

1
ABSTRACT
An Automated External Defibrillator is a device that delivers a therapeutic dose of electrical shock through
the chest to the heart. The shock can potentially stop an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) and allow a
normal rhythm to resume following a Sudden Cardiac Arrest. SCA claims around 700,000 deaths annually
in India and defibrillators are proved essential in recovery from a cardiac arrest. These devices are made
to be used by people with no medical knowledge and hence can be proved to be a real life saver. Currently,
these devices are costly and beyond the reaches of many. This project focuses on a cost effective yet an
efficient approach to Defibrillators. Automated External Defibrillator is divided into two main electric
boards powered by a power source: High-Voltage Board and Control Board.
WORKING
A healthy heart is dependant an electrical charges of its cells to perform a heartbeat. These cells
depolarise and repolarise in a sync to achieve the task of pumping blood. During a Sudden Cardiac Arrest,
this sync is destroyed due to an electrical malfunction and the heart beat does not remain rhythmic.
Hence, the heart is unable to pump blood effectively and the patient loses consciousness. If immediate
medical assistance is not provided, death can occur in minutes.
Defibrillators use electrical energy to depolarise the entire heart in one go so that a normal rhythm can
be established again. For this purpose, a capacitor is charged to a high potential of around 2000V and
discharged into the patient in a small amount of time ranging from 5ms to 50ms, which is comparable to
that of a normal heartbeat. Defibrillators use a truncated monophasic or biphasic wave to achieve
defibrillation.
DESIGN
From engineering point of view, the basic task
is to store 200J-300J of energy in a capacitor
and discharged it into the heart through a
truncated biphasic waveform. There are
researches still going on regarding the process
to precisely clarify the mechanism of biphasic
defibrillation. According to primary
hypothesis, first phase leaves residual charge
on membrane of unsynchronized cells. They
can reinitiate fibrillations. The second phase diminishes the residual charge and reduces potential re-
fibrillation.

High voltage board is responsible for

charging the capacitor and discharging it into
the patient. While the control board is
responsible for determining the need of
defibrillation and subsequently charging the
capacitor if needed. Also, the control board
controls the H-Bridge to invert the
discharging signal midway to attain a biphasic
waveform and truncate the waveform.
HIGH VOLTAGE BOARD
As shown in the block diagram, the High-Voltage Board contains circuitry necessary to perform
defibrillation. It contains a charging circuit, capacitor, H-bridge, internal discharge circuit and two selectors.

2
Charging Circuit
Basically the function of this circuit is to charge the capacitor. A flyback converter or a Boost converter
can be used to step up the voltage to the required level and charge the capacitor within a constrained
time preferably less than 40 seconds. The power source can either be an AC power supply or a battery. If
it is an AC power supply, the voltage must be rectified before amplification can be done.
A flyback converter consists of a transistor,
diode, transformer and a capacitor. When the
transistor is on, current flows through the
primary winding. On the secondary side, no
current flows as the diode is reverse biased.
When the transistor turns off, the primary
current stops, all winding voltages reverse by
flyback effect, and therefore the diode becomes
conducting, current starts flowing in the
secondary winding and the capacitor is charged.
All the energy stored in the primary winding
during previous conditions is transferred into the
capacitor and this process goes on until the
capacitor gets charged to the required potential.
The mode of operation of the Boost converter is similar to that of the Flyback converter except we use a
transformer to store energy in a flyback converter and an inductor in a boost converter. Further research
is required in order to build an efficient and cost effective defibrillator.

H Bridge
H Bridge is a circuit that inverts the polarity of
the voltage applied to the load. It is built with
four switches as shown below. When switches
S1 are closed and switches S2 are kept open, a
positive voltage is applied across the load. On
the contrary, when switches S2 are closed, and
switches S1 are kept closed, a negative voltage
is applied to the load.

Capacitor
The value of the capacitance of the charging capacitor can be calculated using the energy, U, to which the
capacitor is to be charged, the voltage, V, time of discharge, t, and the impedance of the patient, Z.
𝑡
𝑣(𝑡) = 𝑉 ∙ 𝑒 −𝑍∙𝐶
The energy, U, of a capacitor is,
𝑇
𝑉2 2𝑇
𝑈 = ∫ 𝑖(𝑡) ∙ 𝑣(𝑡)𝜕𝑡 = ∙ 𝐶 ∙ (1 − 𝑒 −𝑍∙𝐶 )
0 2
Therefore, the capacitance, C, is
2𝑈
𝐶=
𝑉2
3
Selectors
There are two selectors in the high-voltage board: inner selector and outer selector. Inner selector
switches between the discharge circuit and the outer selector and is controlled by the control board. If
defibrillation is no longer needed but the capacitor is charged, the inner selector switches to the discharge
circuit.
The outer selector works as a safety measure and is controlled manually.
Discharge Circuit
This circuit is needed when defibrillation is no longer required and the capacitor has to be discharged
safely. The circuit consists of a resistor through which the capacitor is discharged.
CONCLUSION
More research is required to proceed further in order to make a low cost defibrillator. Decisions, like what
type of power source should be used and what method of amplification will be efficient and pocket
friendly, are to be made in order to successfully complete the project.
REFERENCES
1. Wikipedia contributors. "Electrocardiography." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia, 12 Sep. 2020. Web. 22 Sep. 2020.
2. Rao, B Hygriv. “Global burden of Sudden Cardiac Death and insights from India.” Indian heart
journal vol. 66 Suppl 1,Suppl 1 (2014): S18-23. doi:10.1016/j.ihj.2013.11.009
3. Ferretti, J. "Centroepiaggio/Open-Automated-External-Defibrillator". Github, 2020,
https://github.com/CentroEPiaggio/Open-Automated-External-Defibrillator. Accessed 22 Sept 2020.