Vital signs monitoring using PPG

Abstract

Vital Signs are physiologically statistical measurements in order to monitor the fundamental conditions of body function. There are four primary measurements of vital signs such as body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate. Therefore, vital signs monitoring using PPG system has been developed to assess those primary parameters so that the medical professionals could continuously monitor the basic conditions of patients. Recently, the system was developed by using PPG sensor and computer. The computer will implement the PPG algorithms and display the PPG waveform. However, the existing vital signs monitoring using PPG system does not provide capability for portability, mobility and usage in smart phones like IPhone or Samsung galaxy. Due to the evolution of mobile technology trend, the system has been studied and transformed into phone application.

In this final year project, vital signs monitoring using PPG system has been built in Samsung Galaxy phone instead of using computer. The author has developed the android application which could display static PPG waveform, PPG autocorrelation waveform and compute heart rate using PPG processing algorithm on the phone screen. The static PPG waveform is a curve which is plotted from extracting raw PPG data after measuring PPG sensor. PPG autocorrelation waveform is a curve for calculating heart rate for a patient. He created heart rate screen displaying heart rate value by implementing PPG processing algorithms. The author also has made different tests for different testing periods ranging from 1.5 seconds, 2.5 seconds, and 5 seconds. The obtained results from executing the android application are similar to the results from the PPG sensor on the computer regarding to the shape and the values. The author has developed three different tests of each sample duration. After analyzing the results from the tests, it is found that the more sample PPG data are calculated, the more accurate the heart rate value is. Finally, the vital signs monitoring using PPG system has been created in android application in android phone for displaying important PPG waveforms and calculating heart rate. In the future, this system features could be enhanced by developing wireless communication between PPG sensor and mobile phone, redesigning the graphic user interface, and implementing other useful vital signs such as blood pressure and oxygen saturation parameter in the android application.