Minimally spaced electrode positions for multi-functional chest sensors: ECG and respiratory signal estimation

Unobtrusive medical instrumentation is a key in continuous patient monitoring. To increase compliance, multi-functional sensor concepts and measurement sites different from gold-standards are used. In this work, we aim to combine both approaches. We focus on minimally spaced electrode positions with high signal correlations to gold-standards. We present twofold experimental data from six and eleven healthy volunteers and provide chest positions with individual correlations up to 0.83 ± 0.06 for ECG and 0.73 ± 0.28 for the respiratory frequency. Using a performance index, we assess positions with correlations up to 0.77 ± 0.12 for ECG and 0.65 ± 0.35 for the respiratory frequency with 24 mm electrode distance.