Blood Pressure Estimation Using Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

In this work, we propose an integrated device that combines a commercial electrocardiographic (ECG)-electrode and an innovative fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor within a single compact clamp, enabling the simultaneous acquisition of the ECG and the pulse wave signals. The novel proposed configuration enables the identification of fiducial points in both signals, allowing the computation of pulse transit time (PTT), which is exploited as a surrogate marker for cuffless blood pressure estimation. The use of a single compact device integrating both ECG and FBG sensing elements improves wearability by eliminating the need for separate systems for the acquisition of the two signals. A proper MATLAB-based algorithm, employing a mathematical formulation derived from PTT measurements, has been developed for blood pressure estimation. The estimated values are compared with reference measurements obtained from a commercial digital sphygmomanometer, and their agreement is quantitatively assessed using Bland–Altman analysis. The preliminary results obtained can be considered promising, with a mean absolute error within ±5 mmHg, suggesting potential compliance with American National Standards Institute/association for the advancement of medical instrumentation standards (ANSI/AAMI) standards for sphygmomanometer validation.