Open AccessSimplified wrist‐worn heart rate sensor using microwave VCO
Author(s) -
McFerran C.,
McKernan A.,
Buchanan N.B.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
electronics letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.375
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1350-911X
pISSN - 0013-5194
DOI - 10.1049/el.2018.7893
Subject(s) - voltage controlled oscillator , heart rate , voltage , microwave , electrical engineering , resonator , computer science , engineering , medicine , telecommunications , blood pressure
This Letter presents a novel, wrist‐worn heart rate sensor, which is comprised of only a passive resonator and a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO). It is clearly demonstrated that valid heart rate data can be extracted off the DC bias circuit of the VCO, making this sensor one of the simplest of its kind ever reported. Experimental results are shown for successful measurements of the user's heart rate when the VCO was tuned to 2.42 GHz, with a DC bias voltage fluctuation of up to 10 mV representing the heart rate. These results are in agreement with those taken using a commercial optical sensor based heart monitor.