Measurement of Heart Rate in Intense Motion Using Photoplethysmographic Signals

Abstract

Photoplethysmographic signal is one of the most convenient approaches to measure heart rate (HR) when subject is not in motion. But in intense motion, HR estimation becomes difficult as the peaks of motion artifacts are mingled with the peaks of heart rate in photoplethysmographic (PPG) signal. In this work, a data independent algorithm is proposed to measure heart rate from the contaminated PPG signal. The method is verified using the 12 data sets provided by IEEE signal processing cup 2015 [13]. Using this method, an average absolute error of 10.60 beat per minute (BPM) and standard deviation of 8.42 BPM are obtained while subjects are running at an average velocity of 15 km/h. Though the results are not highly satisfactory yet, the algorithm may be considered as a potential candidate for data independent PPG-based HR estimation approach.