In Vitro Optical Heart Rate Monitor Testing
Fitness watches for monitoring heart rate typically fall under the FDA’s classification of low risk general wellness products, which are not regulated. This means these watches are not required to go through specific testing protocols or meet certain standards and requirements.
Research Goal
This project aims to create phantom materials that are artificial analogs for human skin and blood and match their optical properties at the wavelengths of light of interest. Among the parameters that can be changed to test under a wide variety of conditions are skin tone, blood pressure, heart rate, and motion artifact generated via a three-axis motion stage. In vitro experiments involving the design and construction of a fluid flow loop that can pump a blood phantom through these skin tissue phantom to generate the appropriate photoplethysmogram (PPG) signal.
Cuffless Blood Pressure Monitoring
Research Goal
This project focuses on developing electronics and algorithms that will enable the estimation of blood pressure without the need for an inflatable cuff. The main principle behind this estimation is pulse wave velocity, which describes how quickly the blood pressure pulse wave propagates from one location to another through the arterial tree. The pulse can be detected at a particular location by monitoring the reflectance of light shone onto the skin, which varies with time as the vessels distend and subsequently recoil during the cardiac cycle.