Remote Monitoring of Vital Signs in Diverse Non-Clinical and Clinical Scenarios Using Computer Vision Systems: A Review

Remote Vital Sensing in Clinical Veterinary Medicine: A Comprehensive Review of Recent Advances, Accomplishments, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Remote vital sensing in veterinary medicine is a relatively new area of practice, which involves the acquisition of data without invasion of the body cavities of live animals. This paper aims to review several technologies in remote vital sensing: infrared thermography, remote photoplethysmography (rPPG), radar, wearable sensors, and computer vision and machine learning. In each of these technologies, we outline its concepts, uses, strengths, and limitations in multiple animal species, and its potential to reshape health surveillance, welfare evaluation, and clinical medicine in animals. The review also provides information about the problems associated with applying these technologies, including species differences, external conditions, and the question of the reliability and classification of these technologies. Additional topics discussed in this review include future developments such as the use of artificial intelligence, combining different sensing methods, and creating monitoring solutions tailored to specific animal species. This contribution gives a clear understanding of the status and future possibilities of remote vital sensing in veterinary applications and stresses the importance of that technology for the development of the veterinary field in terms of animal health and science.

MiVitals- xed Reality Interface for Monitoring: A HoloLens based prototype for healthcare practices

In this paper, we introduce MiVitals-a Mixed Reality (MR) system designed for healthcare professionals to monitor patients in wards or clinics. We detail the design, development, and evaluation of MiVitals, which integrates real-time vital signs from a biosensor-equipped wearable, Vitaliti TM. The system generates holographic visualizations, allowing healthcare professionals to interact with medical charts and information panels holographically. These visualizations display vital signs, trends, other significant physiological signals, and medical early warning scores in a comprehensive manner. We conducted a User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) study focusing on novel holographic visualizations and interfaces that intuitively present medical information. This approach brings traditional bedside medical information to life in the real environment through non-contact 3D images, supporting rapid decision-making, vital pattern and anomaly detection, and enhancing clinicians' performance in wards. Additionally, we present findings from a usability study involving medical doctors and healthcare practitioners to assess MiVitals' efficacy. The System Usability Scale study yielded a score of 84, indicating that the MiVitals system has high usability.

Contactless monitoring to prevent self-harm and suicide in custodial settings: Protocol for a global scoping review

INTRODUCTION

Self-harm and suicide are major contributors to the global burden of disease and people in custodial settings are at a markedly increased risk of these adverse outcomes. Contactless monitoring technology is emerging as a possible solution to prevent self-harm and suicide by detecting and predicting vulnerabilities among people at increased risk in custodial settings in realtime, however no reviews to date have synthesized the evidence base, in the custodial context, regarding (a) the extent to which this technology has been implemented; and (b) the acceptability and feasibility of its application among custodial staff, specifically in relation to maintaining the wellbeing and safety of both incarcerated people and custodial professionals.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

Our scoping review will be reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. We searched key electronic health and social science databases (MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest and Google Scholar) on 5 February 2024 for peer-reviewed studies, which report on the use of contactless monitoring in custodial settings. Any type of study design was eligible, and the publication format was not limited. We included quantitative peer-reviewed journal articles, all types of reviews (narrative, systematic and meta-analysis) and did not apply study eligibility restrictions on country of origin. We will also search grey literature. Inclusion of publications will be restricted to the English language.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

This review does not require institutional ethics review or approval as it is a review of studies that have already been granted relevant ethics approval. Our dissemination strategy includes a peer-reviewed publication and presentations at relevant national and international academic conferences. A plain language summary will be distributed through consumers and professional networks.

An Overview of Software Sensor Applications in Biosystem Monitoring and Control

This review highlights the critical role of software sensors in advancing biosystem monitoring and control by addressing the unique challenges biological systems pose. Biosystems-from cellular interactions to ecological dynamics-are characterized by intrinsic nonlinearity, temporal variability, and uncertainty, posing significant challenges for traditional monitoring approaches. A critical challenge highlighted is that what is typically measurable may not align with what needs to be monitored. Software sensors offer a transformative approach by integrating hardware sensor data with advanced computational models, enabling the indirect estimation of hard-to-measure variables, such as stress indicators, health metrics in animals and humans, and key soil properties. This article outlines advancements in sensor technologies and their integration into model-based monitoring and control systems, leveraging the capabilities of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, wearables, remote sensing, and smart sensors. It provides an overview of common methodologies for designing software sensors, focusing on the modelling process. The discussion contrasts hypothetico-deductive (mechanistic) models with inductive (data-driven) models, illustrating the trade-offs between model accuracy and interpretability. Specific case studies are presented, showcasing software sensor applications such as the use of a Kalman filter in greenhouse control, the remote detection of soil organic matter, and sound recognition algorithms for the early detection of respiratory infections in animals. Key challenges in designing software sensors, including the complexity of biological systems, inherent temporal and individual variabilities, and the trade-offs between model simplicity and predictive performance, are also discussed. This review emphasizes the potential of software sensors to enhance decision-making and promote sustainability in agriculture, healthcare, and environmental monitoring.

A Review of Patient Bed Sensors for Monitoring of Vital Signs

The analysis of biomedical signals is a very challenging task. This review paper is focused on the presentation of various methods where biomedical data, in particular vital signs, could be monitored using sensors mounted to beds. The presented methods to monitor vital signs include those combined with optical fibers, camera systems, pressure sensors, or other sensors, which may provide more efficient patient bed monitoring results. This work also covers the aspects of interference occurrence in the above-mentioned signals and sleep quality monitoring, which play a very important role in the analysis of biomedical signals and the choice of appropriate signal-processing methods. The provided information will help various researchers to understand the importance of vital sign monitoring and will be a thorough and up-to-date summary of these methods. It will also be a foundation for further enhancement of these methods.

Contactless vital signs monitoring in macaques using a mm-wave FMCW radar

Heart rate (HR) and respiration rate (RR) play an important role in the study of complex behaviors and their physiological correlations in non-human primates (NHPs). However, collecting HR and RR information is often challenging, involving either invasive implants or tedious behavioral training, and there are currently few established simple and non-invasive techniques for HR and RR measurement in NHPs owing to their stress response or indocility. In this study, we employed a frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar to design a novel contactless HR and RR monitoring system. The designed system can estimate HR and RR in real time by placing the FMCW radar on the cage and facing the chest of both awake and anesthetized macaques, the NHP investigated in this study. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms existing methods, with averaged absolute errors between the reference monitor and radar estimates of 0.77 beats per minute (bpm) and 1.29 respirations per minute (rpm) for HR and RR, respectively. In summary, we believe that the proposed non-invasive and contactless estimation method could be generalized as a HR and RR monitoring tool for NHPs. Furthermore, after modifying the radar signal-processing algorithms, it also shows promise for applications in other experimental animals for animal welfare, behavioral, neurological, and ethological research.

Integrating RGB-thermal image sensors for non-contact automatic respiration rate monitoring

Respiration rate (RR) holds significance as a human health indicator. Presently, the conventional RR monitoring system requires direct physical contact, which may cause discomfort and pain. Therefore, this paper proposes a non-contact RR monitoring system integrating RGB and thermal imaging through RGB-thermal image alignment. The proposed method employs an advanced image processing algorithm for automatic region of interest (ROI) selection. The experimental results demonstrated a close correlation and a lower error rate between measured thermal, measured RGB, and reference data. In summary, the proposed non-contact system emerges as a promising alternative to conventional contact-based approaches without the associated discomfort and pain.

Wearable Systems for Unveiling Collective Intelligence in Clinical Settings

Nowadays, there is an ever-growing interest in assessing the collective intelligence (CI) of a team in a wide range of scenarios, thanks to its potential in enhancing teamwork and group performance. Recently, special attention has been devoted on the clinical setting, where breakdowns in teamwork, leadership, and communication can lead to adverse events, compromising patient safety. So far, researchers have mostly relied on surveys to study human behavior and group dynamics; however, this method is ineffective. In contrast, a promising solution to monitor behavioral and individual features that are reflective of CI is represented by wearable technologies. To date, the field of CI assessment still appears unstructured; therefore, the aim of this narrative review is to provide a detailed overview of the main group and individual parameters that can be monitored to evaluate CI in clinical settings, together with the wearables either already used to assess them or that have the potential to be applied in this scenario. The working principles, advantages, and disadvantages of each device are introduced in order to try to bring order in this field and provide a guide for future CI investigations in medical contexts.

Capturing the pulse: a state-of-the-art review on camera-based jugular vein assessment

Heart failure is associated with a rehospitalisation rate of up to 50% within six months. Elevated central venous pressure may serve as an early warning sign. While invasive procedures are used to measure central venous pressure for guiding treatment in hospital, this becomes impractical upon discharge. A non-invasive estimation technique exists, where the clinician visually inspects the pulsation of the jugular veins in the neck, but it is less reliable due to human limitations. Video and signal processing technologies may offer a high-fidelity alternative. This state-of-the-art review analyses existing literature on camera-based methods for jugular vein assessment. We summarize key design considerations and suggest avenues for future research. Our review highlights the neck as a rich imaging target beyond the jugular veins, capturing comprehensive cardiac signals, and outlines factors affecting signal quality and measurement accuracy. Addressing an often quoted limitation in the field, we also propose minimum reporting standards for future studies.

Face2PPG: An Unsupervised Pipeline for Blood Volume Pulse Extraction From Faces

Photoplethysmography (PPG) signals have become a key technology in many fields, such as medicine, well-being, or sports. Our work proposes a set of pipelines to extract remote PPG signals (rPPG) from the face robustly, reliably, and configurably. We identify and evaluate the possible choices in the critical steps of unsupervised rPPG methodologies. We assess a state-of-the-art processing pipeline in six different datasets, incorporating important corrections in the methodology that ensure reproducible and fair comparisons. In addition, we extend the pipeline by proposing three novel ideas; 1) a new method to stabilize the detected face based on a rigid mesh normalization; 2) a new method to dynamically select the different regions in the face that provide the best raw signals, and 3) a new RGB to rPPG transformation method, called Orthogonal Matrix Image Transformation (OMIT) based on QR decomposition, that increases robustness against compression artifacts. We show that all three changes introduce noticeable improvements in retrieving rPPG signals from faces, obtaining state-of-the-art results compared with unsupervised, non-learning-based methodologies and, in some databases, very close to supervised, learning-based methods. We perform a comparative study to quantify the contribution of each proposed idea. In addition, we depict a series of observations that could help in future implementations.

Remote Blood Pressure Estimation via the Spatiotemporal Mapping of Facial Videos

Blood pressure (BP) monitoring is vital in daily healthcare, especially for cardiovascular diseases. However, BP values are mainly acquired through a contact-sensing method, which is inconvenient and unfriendly for BP monitoring. This paper proposes an efficient end-to-end network for estimating BP values from a facial video to achieve remote BP estimation in daily life. The network first derives a spatiotemporal map of a facial video. Then, it regresses the BP ranges with a designed blood pressure classifier and simultaneously calculates the specific value with a blood pressure calculator in each BP range based on the spatiotemporal map. In addition, an innovative oversampling training strategy was developed to handle the problem of unbalanced data distribution. Finally, we trained the proposed blood pressure estimation network on a private dataset, MPM-BP, and tested it on a popular public dataset, MMSE-HR. As a result, the proposed network achieved a mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) of 12.35 mmHg and 16.55 mmHg on systolic BP estimations, and those for diastolic BP were 9.54 mmHg and 12.22 mmHg, which were better than the values obtained in recent works. It can be concluded that the proposed method has excellent potential for camera-based BP monitoring in the indoor scenarios in the real world.

A Review of Synthetic Image Data and Its Use in Computer Vision

Development of computer vision algorithms using convolutional neural networks and deep learning has necessitated ever greater amounts of annotated and labelled data to produce high performance models. Large, public data sets have been instrumental in pushing forward computer vision by providing the data necessary for training. However, many computer vision applications cannot rely on general image data provided in the available public datasets to train models, instead requiring labelled image data that is not readily available in the public domain on a large scale. At the same time, acquiring such data from the real world can be difficult, costly to obtain, and manual labour intensive to label in large quantities. Because of this, synthetic image data has been pushed to the forefront as a potentially faster and cheaper alternative to collecting and annotating real data. This review provides general overview of types of synthetic image data, as categorised by synthesised output, common methods of synthesising different types of image data, existing applications and logical extensions, performance of synthetic image data in different applications and the associated difficulties in assessing data performance, and areas for further research.

A real-time heart rate estimation framework based on a facial video while wearing a mask

BACKGROUND: The imaging photoplethysmography (iPPG) method is a non-invasive, non-contact measurement method that uses a camera to detect physiological indicators. On the other hand, wearing a mask has become essential today when COVID-19 is rampant, which has become a new challenge for heart rate (HR) estimation from facial videos recorded by a camera. OBJECTIVE: The aim is to propose an iPPG-based method that can accurately estimate HR with or without a mask. METHODS: First, the facial regions of interest (ROI) were divided into two sub-ROIs, and the original signal was obtained through spatial averaging with different weights according to the result of judging whether wearing a mask or not, and the CDF, which emphasizes the main component signal, was combined with the improved POS suitable for real-time HR estimation to obtain the noise-removed BVP signal. RESULTS: For self-collected data while wearing a mask, MAE, RMSE, and ACC were 1.09 bpm, 1.44 bpm, and 99.08%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Experimental results show that the proposed framework can estimate HR stably in real-time in both cases of wearing a mask or not. This study expands the application range of HR estimation based on facial videos and has very practical value in real-time HR estimation in daily life.

Non-Contact Supervision of COVID-19 Breathing Behaviour With FMCW Radar and Stacked Ensemble Learning Model in Real-Time

A respiratory disorder that attacks COVID-19 patients requires intensive supervision of medical practitioners during the isolation period. A non-contact monitoring device will be a suitable solution for reducing the spread risk of the virus while monitoring the COVID-19 patient. This study uses Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar and Machine Learning (ML) to obtain respiratory information and analyze respiratory signals, respectively. Multiple subjects in a room can be detected simultaneously by calculating the Angle of Arrival (AoA) of the received signal and utilizing the Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) of FMCW radar. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and some signal processing are implemented to obtain a breathing waveform. ML helps the system to analyze the respiratory signals automatically. This paper also compares the performance of several ML algorithms such as Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR), Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB), Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM), CatBoosting (CB) Classifier, Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), and three proposed stacked ensemble models, namely Stacked Ensemble Classifier (SEC), Boosting Tree-based Stacked Classifier (BTSC), and Neural Stacked Ensemble Model (NSEM) to obtain the best ML model. The results show that the NSEM algorithm achieves the best performance with 97.1% accuracy. In the real-time implementation, the system could simultaneously detect several objects with different breathing characteristics and classify the respiratory signals into five different classes.

Automated Remote Pulse Oximetry System (ARPOS)

Current methods of measuring heart rate (HR) and oxygen levels (SPO2) require physical contact, are individualised, and for accurate oxygen levels may also require a blood test. No-touch or non-invasive technologies are not currently commercially available for use in healthcare settings. To date, there has been no assessment of a system that measures HR and SPO2 using commercial off-the-shelf camera technology that utilises R, G, B, and IR data. Moreover, no formal remote photoplethysmography studies have been performed in real-life scenarios with participants at home with different demographic characteristics. This novel study addresses all these objectives by developing, optimising, and evaluating a system that measures the HR and SPO2 of 40 participants. HR and SPO2 are determined by measuring the frequencies from different wavelength band regions using FFT and radiometric measurements after pre-processing face regions of interest (forehead, lips, and cheeks) from colour, IR, and depth data. Detrending, interpolating, hamming, and normalising the signal with FastICA produced the lowest RMSE of 7.8 for HR with the r-correlation value of 0.85 and RMSE 2.3 for SPO2. This novel system could be used in several critical care settings, including in care homes and in hospitals and prompt clinical intervention as required.

Continuous Monitoring of Vital Signs Using Cameras: A Systematic Review

In recent years, noncontact measurements of vital signs using cameras received a great amount of interest. However, some questions are unanswered: (i) Which vital sign is monitored using what type of camera? (ii) What is the performance and which factors affect it? (iii) Which health issues are addressed by camera-based techniques? Following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) statement, we conduct a systematic review of continuous camera-based vital sign monitoring using Scopus, PubMed, and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) databases. We consider articles that were published between January 2018 and April 2021 in the English language. We include five vital signs: heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), blood pressure (BP), body skin temperature (BST), and oxygen saturation (SpO2). In total, we retrieve 905 articles and screened them regarding title, abstract, and full text. One hundred and four articles remained: 60, 20, 6, 2, and 1 of the articles focus on HR, RR, BP, BST, and SpO2, respectively, and 15 on multiple vital signs. HR and RR can be measured using red, green, and blue (RGB) and near-infrared (NIR) as well as far-infrared (FIR) cameras. So far, BP and SpO2 are monitored with RGB cameras only, whereas BST is derived from FIR cameras only. Under ideal conditions, the root mean squared error is around 2.60 bpm, 2.22 cpm, 6.91 mm Hg, 4.88 mm Hg, and 0.86 °C for HR, RR, systolic BP, diastolic BP, and BST, respectively. The estimated error for SpO2 is less than 1%, but it increases with movements of the subject and the camera-subject distance. Camera-based remote monitoring mainly explores intensive care, post-anaesthesia care, and sleep monitoring, but also explores special diseases such as heart failure. The monitored targets are newborn and pediatric patients, geriatric patients, athletes (e.g., exercising, cycling), and vehicle drivers. Camera-based techniques monitor HR, RR, and BST in static conditions within acceptable ranges for certain applications. The research gaps are large and heterogeneous populations, real-time scenarios, moving subjects, and accuracy of BP and SpO2 monitoring.

Contactless Vital Signs Monitoring From Videos Recorded With Digital Cameras: An Overview

The measurement of physiological parameters is fundamental to assess the health status of an individual. The contactless monitoring of vital signs may provide benefits in various fields of application, from healthcare and clinical setting to occupational and sports scenarios. Recent research has been focused on the potentiality of camera-based systems working in the visible range (380-750 nm) for estimating vital signs by capturing subtle color changes or motions caused by physiological activities but invisible to human eyes. These quantities are typically extracted from videos framing some exposed body areas (e.g., face, torso, and hands) with adequate post-processing algorithms. In this review, we provided an overview of the physiological and technical aspects behind the estimation of vital signs like respiratory rate, heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and blood pressure from digital images as well as the potential fields of application of these technologies. Per each vital sign, we provided the rationale for the measurement, a classification of the different techniques implemented for post-processing the original videos, and the main results obtained during various applications or in validation studies. The available evidence supports the premise of digital cameras as an unobtrusive and easy-to-use technology for physiological signs monitoring. Further research is needed to promote the advancements of the technology, allowing its application in a wide range of population and everyday life, fostering a biometrical holistic of the human body (BHOHB) approach.

Drone Applications Fighting COVID-19 Pandemic—Towards Good Practices

Of the recent epidemics, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly severe, not only putting our health at risk, but also negatively affecting our daily lives. As there are no developed algorithms for the use of drones in epidemiological situations, it is ideal to analyze the experience gained on drones so far and outline the effective methods for future good practice. The author relies on a method of analyzing widely available open information, such as images and videos available on the Internet, reports from drone users, announcements by drone manufacturers and the contents of newspaper articles. Furthermore, the author has relied on the results of the relevant literature, as well as previous experience as a drone user and fire commander. The study reveals numerous possibilities associated with drone usage in epidemic related situations, but previous applications are based on previous experience gained during a non-epidemic situation, without developed algorithms. Applications can be divided into different types of groups: drones can collect data for management and provide information to the public, perform general or special logistical tasks to support health care and disinfect to reduce the risk of spreading the epidemic.

Drone Use for COVID-19 Related Problems: Techno-solutionism and its Societal Implications

Drones have been widely used by public authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic for pandemic-related problems. As an innovative tool with a wide range of potentialities, they have been deemed suitable for an exceptional situation marked by the persistence of social distance. Yet, the turn to new technology to solve complex problems is a political decision that has broad societal implications, especially in the context of declared states of emergency. In the article we argue that the extensive use of drones by national authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a new socio-technical assemblage of actors, technologies and practices. Building on the three main uses of drones as responses to specific pandemic-related challenges (disinfection, delivery, and surveillance), we analyse the actors and the practices involved in this new socio-technical assemblage. From the empirical material, we explore potential effects of drone uses on key issues such as the technology regulatory processes, public acceptance, and security and safety concerns.

Deep Learning Methods for Remote Heart Rate Measurement: A Review and Future Research Agenda

Heart rate (HR) is one of the essential vital signs used to indicate the physiological health of the human body. While traditional HR monitors usually require contact with skin, remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) enables contactless HR monitoring by capturing subtle light changes of skin through a video camera. Given the vast potential of this technology in the future of digital healthcare, remote monitoring of physiological signals has gained significant traction in the research community. In recent years, the success of deep learning (DL) methods for image and video analysis has inspired researchers to apply such techniques to various parts of the remote physiological signal extraction pipeline. In this paper, we discuss several recent advances of DL-based methods specifically for remote HR measurement, categorizing them based on model architecture and application. We further detail relevant real-world applications of remote physiological monitoring and summarize various common resources used to accelerate related research progress. Lastly, we analyze the implications of research findings and discuss research gaps to guide future explorations.

A New Framework for Robust Heart Rate Measurement Based on the Head Motion State Estimation

It is of great significance in managing human health, preventing and curing diseases such as heart disease to measure and monitor the physiological parameters accurately and robustly. However, imaging photoplethysmography (iPPG) can be easily affected by the ambient illumination variations or the subject's motions. In this paper, therefore, a novel framework of heart rate (HR) measurement robust to both illumination and motion artefacts is proposed, which combines the projection-plane-switching-based iPPG method (2PS) with the singular spectrum analysis (SSA). Based on the estimation of the head motion state, one reasonable projection plane is firstly determined, the temporally normalized red-green-blue signals are projected onto the plane and a pulse signal is obtained by alpha-tuning. After that, singular spectrum analysis (SSA) is applied to the obtained pulse signal and the normalized B-channel signal of the facial region of interest (ROI) to remove the artefacts remained in the pulse signal. For the self-collected database and the public PURE database, Bland-Altman plots show that the proposed 2PS-SSA has better agreement than the five compared methods, where the mean biases are 0.59 beat per minute (bpm) and 0.034 bpm, with 95% limits from -2.59 bpm to 3.78 bpm and from -1.97 bpm to 2.04 bpm, respectively.

Non-Contact Automatic Vital Signs Monitoring of Infants in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Based on Neural Networks

Infants with fragile skin are patients who would benefit from non-contact vital sign monitoring due to the avoidance of potentially harmful adhesive electrodes and cables. Non-contact vital signs monitoring has been studied in clinical settings in recent decades. However, studies on infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are still limited. Therefore, we conducted a single-center study to remotely monitor the heart rate (HR) and respiratory rate (RR) of seven infants in NICU using a digital camera. The region of interest (ROI) was automatically selected using a convolutional neural network and signal decomposition was used to minimize the noise artefacts. The experimental results have been validated with the reference data obtained from an ECG monitor. They showed a strong correlation using the Pearson correlation coefficients (PCC) of 0.9864 and 0.9453 for HR and RR, respectively, and a lower error rate with RMSE 2.23 beats/min and 2.69 breaths/min between measured data and reference data. A Bland-Altman analysis of the data also presented a close correlation between measured data and reference data for both HR and RR. Therefore, this technique may be applicable in clinical environments as an economical, non-contact, and easily deployable monitoring system, and it also represents a potential application in home health monitoring.

Non-Contact SpO2 Prediction System Based on a Digital Camera

Patients with the COVID-19 condition require frequent and accurate blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) monitoring. The existing pulse oximeters, however, require contact-based measurement using clips or otherwise fixed sensor units or need dedicated hardware which may cause inconvenience and involve additional appointments with the patient. This study proposes a computer vision-based system using a digital camera to measure SpO2 on the basis of the imaging photoplethysmography (iPPG) signal extracted from the human’s forehead without the need for restricting the subject or physical contact. The proposed camera-based system decomposes the iPPG obtained from the red and green channels into different signals with different frequencies using a signal decomposition technique based on a complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) technique and Independent Component Analysis (ICA) technique to obtain the optical properties from these wavelengths and frequency channels. The proposed system is convenient, contactless, safe and cost-effective. The preliminary results for 70 videos obtained from 14 subjects of different ages and with different skin tones showed that the red and green wavelengths could be used to estimate SpO2 with good agreement and low error ratio compared to the gold standard of pulse oximetry (SA210) with a fixed measurement position.

Photoplethysmography in Normal and Pathological Sleep

This article presents an overview of the advancements that have been made in the use of photoplethysmography (PPG) for unobtrusive sleep studies. PPG is included in the quickly evolving and very popular landscape of wearables but has specific interesting properties, particularly the ability to capture the modulation of the autonomic nervous system during sleep. Recent advances have been made in PPG signal acquisition and processing, including coupling it with accelerometry in order to construct hypnograms in normal and pathologic sleep and also to detect sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). The limitations of PPG (e.g., oxymetry signal failure, motion artefacts, signal processing) are reviewed as well as technical solutions to overcome these issues. The potential medical applications of PPG are numerous, including home-based detection of SDB (for triage purposes), and long-term monitoring of insomnia, circadian rhythm sleep disorders (to assess treatment effects), and treated SDB (to ensure disease control). New contact sensor combinations to improve future wearables seem promising, particularly tools that allow for the assessment of brain activity. In this way, in-ear EEG combined with PPG and actigraphy could be an interesting focus for future research.

A measurement of illumination variation-resistant noncontact heart rate based on the combination of singular spectrum analysis and sub-band method

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

The imaging photoplethysmography method is a non-contact and non-invasive measurement method that usually uses surrounding illumination as an illuminant, which can be easily influenced by the surrounding illumination variations. Thus, it has a practical value to develop an efficient method of heart rate measurement that can remove the interference of illumination variations robustly.

METHOD

We propose a novel framework of heart rate measurement that is robust to illumination variations by combining singular spectrum analysis and sub-band method. At first, we extract the blood volume pulse signal by applying the modified sub-band method to the raw facial RGB trace signals. Then the spectra for the interference of illumination variations are extracted from the raw signal obtained from facial regions of interest by using singular spectrum analysis. Finally, we estimate the more robust heart rate through comparison analysis between the spectra of the extracted blood volume pulse signal and the illumination variations.

RESULTS

We compared our method with several state-of-the-art methods through the analysis using the self-collected data and the UBFC-RPPG database. Bland-Altman plots and Pearson correlation coefficients pointed out that the proposed method could measure the heart rate more accurately than the state-of-the-art methods. For the self-collected data and the UBFC-RPPG database, Bland-Altman plots showed that proposed method caused better agreement with 95% limits from -4 bpm to 10 bpm and from -2 bpm to 4 bpm respectively than the other state-of-the-art methods. It also revealed that the highly linear relation was held between the estimated heart rate and ground truth with the correlation coefficients of 0.89 and 0.99, respectively.

CONCLUSION

By extracting illumination variation directly from the facial region of interest rather than from the background region of interest, the proposed method demonstrates that it can overcome the drawbacks of the previous methods due to the illumination variation difference between the background and facial regions of interest. It can be found that the proposed method has a relatively good robustness regardless of whether illumination variation exists or not.

Soil color analysis based on a RGB camera and an artificial neural network towards smart irrigation: A pilot study

Irrigation operations in agriculture are one of the largest water consumers in the world, and it has been increasing due to rising population and consequent increased demand for food. The development of advanced irrigation technologies based on modern techniques is of utmost necessity to ensure efficient use of water. Smart irrigation based on computer vision could help in achieving optimum water-utilization in agriculture using a highly available digital technology. This paper presents a non-contact vision system based on a standard video camera to predict the irrigation requirements for loam soils using a feed-forward back propagation neural network. The study relies on analyzing the differences in soil color captured by a video camera at different distances, times and illumination levels obtained from loam soil over four weeks of data acquisition. The proposed system used this color information as input to an artificial neural network (ANN) system to make a decision as to whether to irrigate the soil or not. The proposed system was very accurate, achieving a mean square error (MSE) of 1.616 × 10^-6 (training), 1.004 × 10^-5 (testing) and 1.809 × 10^-5 (validation). The proposed system is simple, robust and affordable making it promising technology to support precision agriculture.

Noncontact Sensing of Contagion

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared COVID-19 a pandemic. We review and reduce the clinical literature on diagnosis of COVID-19 through symptoms that might be remotely detected as of early May 2020. Vital signs associated with respiratory distress and fever, coughing, and visible infections have been reported. Fever screening by temperature monitoring is currently popular. However, improved noncontact detection is sought. Vital signs including heart rate and respiratory rate are affected by the condition. Cough, fatigue, and visible infections are also reported as common symptoms. There are non-contact methods for measuring vital signs remotely that have been shown to have acceptable accuracy, reliability, and practicality in some settings. Each has its pros and cons and may perform well in some challenges but be inadequate in others. Our review shows that visible spectrum and thermal spectrum cameras offer the best options for truly noncontact sensing of those studied to date, thermal cameras due to their potential to measure all likely symptoms on a single camera, especially temperature, and video cameras due to their availability, cost, adaptability, and compatibility. Substantial supply chain disruptions during the pandemic and the widespread nature of the problem means that cost-effectiveness and availability are important considerations.

Research on the combination of color channels in heart rate measurement based on photoplethysmography imaging

SIGNIFICANCE

The measurement of human vital signs based on photoplethysmography imaging (PPGI) can be severely affected by the interference of various factors in the measurement process; therefore, a lot of complex signal processing techniques are used to remove the influence of the interference.

AIM

We comprehensively analyze several methods for color channel combination in the color spaces currently used in PPGI and determine the combination method that can improve the quality of the pulse signal, which results in a modified plane-orthogonal-to-skin based method (POS).

APPROACH

Based on the analysis of the previous studies, 13 methods for color channel combination in the different color spaces, which can be seen as having potential abilities in measuring vital signs, were compared by employing the average value of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the box-plot in the public databases UBFC-RPPG and PURE. In addition, the pulse signal was extracted through the dual-color space transformation (sRGB → intensity normalized RGB → YCbCr) and fine-tuning on the CbCr plane.

RESULTS

Among the 13 methods for color channel combination, the signal extracted by the Cb+Cr combination in the YCbCr color space includes the most pulse information. Furthermore, the average SNR of the modified POS for all the used databases is improved by 69.3% compared to POS.

CONCLUSIONS

The methods using prior knowledge are not only simple to calculate but can significantly increase the SNR, which will provide a great help in the practical use of vital sign measurements based on PPGI.

The Importance of Respiratory Rate Monitoring: From Healthcare to Sport and Exercise

Respiratory rate is a fundamental vital sign that is sensitive to different pathological conditions (e.g., adverse cardiac events, pneumonia, and clinical deterioration) and stressors, including emotional stress, cognitive load, heat, cold, physical effort, and exercise-induced fatigue. The sensitivity of respiratory rate to these conditions is superior compared to that of most of the other vital signs, and the abundance of suitable technological solutions measuring respiratory rate has important implications for healthcare, occupational settings, and sport. However, respiratory rate is still too often not routinely monitored in these fields of use. This review presents a multidisciplinary approach to respiratory monitoring, with the aim to improve the development and efficacy of respiratory monitoring services. We have identified thirteen monitoring goals where the use of the respiratory rate is invaluable, and for each of them we have described suitable sensors and techniques to monitor respiratory rate in specific measurement scenarios. We have also provided a physiological rationale corroborating the importance of respiratory rate monitoring and an original multidisciplinary framework for the development of respiratory monitoring services. This review is expected to advance the field of respiratory monitoring and favor synergies between different disciplines to accomplish this goal.

A Review on Biomedical MIMO Radars for Vital Sign Detection and Human Localization

This paper reports a thorough overview on the last developments concerning the vital sign detection and the human localization employing the multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology. The wireless motion and vital sign detection represents an outstanding research area aimed at monitoring the health conditions of human subjects and at detecting their presence in different environments with minimal concern. MIMO radars exhibit several interesting advantages over conventional single-input-single-output architectures mainly related to their angle detection capabilities and enhanced signal-to-noise ratio. This paper describes the main features and details the operating principles of MIMO technology. Thereafter, it summarizes the state-of-the-art of the available solutions with the purpose of fueling the research activities on this hot topic.

Detection and Localisation of Life Signs from the Air Using Image Registration and Spatio-Temporal Filtering

In search and rescue operations, it is crucial to rapidly identify those people who are alive from those who are not. If this information is known, emergency teams can prioritize their operations to save more lives. However, in some natural disasters the people may be lying on the ground covered with dust, debris, or ashes making them difficult to detect by video analysis that is tuned to human shapes. We present a novel method to estimate the locations of people from aerial video using image and signal processing designed to detect breathing movements. We have shown that this method can successfully detect clearly visible people and people who are fully occluded by debris. First, the aerial videos were stabilized using the key points of adjacent image frames. Next, the stabilized video was decomposed into tile videos and the temporal frequency bands of interest were motion magnified while the other frequencies were suppressed. Image differencing and temporal filtering were performed on each tile video to detect potential breathing signals. Finally, the detected frequencies were remapped to the image frame creating a life signs map that indicates possible human locations. The proposed method was validated with both aerial and ground recorded videos in a controlled environment. Based on the dataset, the results showed good reliability for aerial videos and no errors for ground recorded videos where the average precision measures for aerial videos and ground recorded videos were 0.913 and 1 respectively.