A Novel Method and Mobile System for Accurate Heart Rate Measurement from Finger and Face

Abstract

Heart rate is an important vital indicator which provides information about the rhythm of the heart and helps in diagnosing several heart diseases. As it can be usually determined manually, there are also some medical devices that automatically measure heart rate. Measuring heart rate quickly and consistently may play important role in the early detection of heart attack and various heart rate related disorders. In this work, a mobile based system that performs quick and practical heart rate measurement. Processing RGB color changes in the image frames recorded from finger or face, which cannot be distinguished by eye but detected by camera when heart pumps blood through the arteries; the rate of color change is correlated with the heart rate. Experiments give very satisfactory heart rate computation accuracy. Proposed system can be used for early diagnosis or treatment monitoring of heart attack and heart related diseases. This may allow dissemination of easy access of heart rate information via mobile tool on the impact of heart rate on human health. © 2016 IEEE.