Photonic monitoring of vital signs

The Nanoengineering Group is working on a compact solution for a photoplethysmograph for pulsewave analysis and blood oxygen saturation that can be integrated with other sensors for multiparameter monitoring. A special focus lies on solutions that are portable, non-invasive, and comfortable to wear for the patient.
 
One major goal of this topic is the development of devices that can be used for continuous long-term monitoring of vital signs and that are comfortable to wear for the patient without getting biased. This requires new application sites at the human body and new technology. At the same time, new stable mathematical algorithms have to be developed that are robust against movement and further artifacts, and to compensate for weaker signal-to-noise ratios. To overcome uncertainties due to standard data filtering and time-domain peak detection, multiresolution analysis and short-time Fourier transform methods are employed.