Cardiopathies are some of the most common causes of death worldwide and therefore cardiac imaging is one of the most important studies that can be performed in the diagnostic process. However, not only does cardiac imaging have special requirements when it comes to the equipment used such as spatial and temporal resolution, but final image quality and therefore diagnosis may be greatly hindered by the movement of the thoracic cavity and of the heart itself. The problem of motion artifacts caused by breathing motion together with heart movement during the cardiac cycle is solved by image gating, by synchronising vital signs to an image acquisition system, and obtaining images according to the generated signal, and therefore reducing movement artifacts. To address this issue, the objective of this bachelor thesis is to propose a prototype for the implementation of a cardio-respiratory monitor designed, developed and programmed for image gating in a preclinical setting. This device was built with an Arduino microcontroller, an ECG-FE, a pressure sensor connected to a pressure transducer to sense the respiratory signal, a touchscreen and a rectal temperature sensing module. All signals are sampled and processed by the Arduino MEGA 2560 microcontroller. The testing of the prototype was performed with simulated patients in UC3M laboratories, and with small animals at Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón’s Laboratorio de Imagen Médica y Cirugía Experimental. Overall, results were very satisfactory despite an issue with missed TTL beats that will be resolved in future work by redesigning the algorithm for touchscreen visualisation of the different signals, and gating conditions. The reduced costs of this device with respect to other such devices on the market, along with the intuitive interface and its portability could ease implementation of image gating, enabling key preclinical research for heart disease.