A novel video-based algorithm can estimate heart rate from human skin with accuracy and sensitivity comparable to standard pulse oximeters.
May enable contactless HR monitoring in controlled settings; leaves open validation in clinical populations.
We describe a simple but robust algorithm for estimating the heart rate pulse from video sequences containing human skin in real time. Based on a model of light interaction with human skin, we define the change of blood concentration due to arterial pulsation as a pixel quotient in log space, and successfully use the derived signal for computing the pulse heart rate. Various experiments with different cameras, different illumination condition, and different skin locations were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm. Examples computed with normal illumination show the algorithm is comparable with pulse oximeter devices both in accuracy and sensitivity.
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Xu et al. (2014) studied this question.
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