The monitoring of vital signs represents an impor-tant measure in several fields which also go beyond the clinicalenvironment. Nowadays, different technologies are employed tofulfil this aim, and among them, remote monitoring devicesare becoming more and more popular. Following this trend,here we present an in-house, experimental ultrasound systemfor heartbeat detection which does not require any contact withthe subject and allows remote monitoring of heart rate and itsvariability. The system works by transmitting ultrasound wavesand receiving the echoes after the reflection on subject’s pit ofthe neck. By comparing the phases of transmitted and receivedwaves, it measures distances with high accuracy, and thus itcan detect the sub-millimetre movements of the skin due to thepressure waves produced by heart contractions. Conversely fromother existing ultrasound systems, the novelty proposed in thispaper is in the multi-channel strategy to address the null pointissue and selecting the best one per each measure, and in the useof an adaptive heartbeat detection algorithm. Due to the adoptedtransducers and electronics, the proposed system is characterisedby a low cost of production. Performance analyses were carriedout both in case of phantoms and volunteers to test the system.The results look promising as it was able to detect the heartbeatswith reliability close to standard electrocardiography, achievinggood performance also in measuring the heart rate variability.An average mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.02 beats per minute(bpm) is assessed on real data.

A Multi-Channel Ultrasound System for Non-Contact Heart Rate Monitoring

Michele Ambrosanio
;
Stefano Franceschini;Grassini Giuseppe;Baselice Fabio
2019-01-01

Abstract

The monitoring of vital signs represents an impor-tant measure in several fields which also go beyond the clinicalenvironment. Nowadays, different technologies are employed tofulfil this aim, and among them, remote monitoring devicesare becoming more and more popular. Following this trend,here we present an in-house, experimental ultrasound systemfor heartbeat detection which does not require any contact withthe subject and allows remote monitoring of heart rate and itsvariability. The system works by transmitting ultrasound wavesand receiving the echoes after the reflection on subject’s pit ofthe neck. By comparing the phases of transmitted and receivedwaves, it measures distances with high accuracy, and thus itcan detect the sub-millimetre movements of the skin due to thepressure waves produced by heart contractions. Conversely fromother existing ultrasound systems, the novelty proposed in thispaper is in the multi-channel strategy to address the null pointissue and selecting the best one per each measure, and in the useof an adaptive heartbeat detection algorithm. Due to the adoptedtransducers and electronics, the proposed system is characterisedby a low cost of production. Performance analyses were carriedout both in case of phantoms and volunteers to test the system.The results look promising as it was able to detect the heartbeatswith reliability close to standard electrocardiography, achievinggood performance also in measuring the heart rate variability.An average mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.02 beats per minute(bpm) is assessed on real data.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11367/79608
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