SUMMARY
UCLA researchers in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering have developed a contactless apparatus to report broad vital sign measurements using face video acquisition and signal processing pipelines while ensuring patients’ privacy through visual encoding methods.
BACKGROUND
Photoplethysmography (PPG) is an inexpensive optical method that is often used for heart rate monitoring purposes by using a light source and a photodetector at the surface of skin to measure volumetric variations of blood circulation. Recently, there has been interest on the use of PPG for other measurements such as pulse oximetry readings. While PPG is widely used for the reading of body vital measurements, the user must place it on contact with skin for the measurement to occur, which can cause cross contamination from user to user (particularly important in pandemics such as COVID-19). Therefore, there is a need to develop a new contactless body vital measurement system that can encompass essential paradigm of broad vital sign measurements.
INNOVATION
UCLA researchers in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering developed a contactless measurement system that utilized face video acquisition using smartphone cameras and signal processing pipelines to build conventional imaging units equipped with active illumination setups to collect relevant body vitals, while ensuring privacy of patients through visual encoding methods. The universal system was capable to extract a wide range of body vitals like heart rate, respiratory rate, and pulse oxygenation, in a contactless manner which can prevent cross contamination from user to user.
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS
ADVANTAGES