Novel heart rate variability index for wrist-worn wearable devices subject to motion artifacts that complicate measurement of the continuous pulse interval

Objective : Wearable health monitoring devices have recently become popular, but they can still only measure the average heart rate. Heart rate variability (HRV) is known to represent changes in the autonomic nervous system and analysis of HRV has the potential to be used for monitoring various wellness-related parameters such as sleep or stress. HRV analysis requires accurate measurement of the heartbeat interval. In wearable devices, it is difficult to accurately measure the heartbeat interval due to motion noise. In this paper we propose a new method for performing HRV analysis on photoplethysmographic (PPG) signals corrupted by motion artifacts measured at the wrist. Approach : A frequency-tracking algorithm based on the oscillator-based adaptive notch filter was used to measure instantaneous heart rate. The algorithm consists of a time-varying bandpass filter for enhancing the heartbeat signal and an adaptive mechanism for tracking heart rate frequency. By opti...
Source: Physiological Measurement - Category: Physiology Authors: Source Type: research