In this paper the solution of the specialized measuring system for electrocardiography (ECG) signal recording and introductory recognition is presented. The project aims at designing the complete PC-based Virtual Instrument as a "testing platform" for acquisition, processing, presenting, and distributing ECG data. A new design involving the latest technique in signal simulation was developed to create a controllable model of the electrocardiography signal. Then it was implemented for testing of the developed QRS detection algorithm, based on the time-frequency analysis method. The processing stage involving discrete wavelet transform was used to detect QRS complexes in the ECG signal. By using the controlled signal model and the real ones, the algorithm was shown to be advantageous in reducing ventilation artifacts and motion noise, resulting in good accuracy.