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Date:  Thu, October 20, 2016
Time:  9:30am - 11:30am
Location:  Holmes Hall 389
Speaker:  Jia Xu, candidate for MS, thesis advisor: Dr. Olga Boric-Lubecke

Physiological monitoring systems that monitor vital signs are important for health condition prognosis and diagnosis. These systems use transducers to detect weak physiological parameters, such as electrical signals (potential, impedance, capacitance) and mechanical variations (displacement). Though conventional physiological monitors provides reliable readings of vital signs, the wiring configurations may interfere cardiovascular activity pattern as well as refrain subject’s daily activities. And it is hard to be used in non-clinical environment without the help of professional personnel. In this work, a bio-impedance analysis (BIA) based contact method and Wi-Fi band Doppler radar based non-contact method are proposed. The BIA system was able to estimate heart rate from the subject’s wrist with only four electrodes. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported BIA heartbeat monitoring system in the wristband configuration. In addition, an assessment of a variety of conventional biosensors for vital sign sensing were conducted, which evaluated their capabilities of acquiring heart rate or respiration rate from non-conventional locations. The Doppler radar system was intended to detect heartbeat on the surface of chest wall by measuring small displacements due to cardiac activities. The lead-free feature of radar sensor eliminates any wiring configuration to the subject, and is a good candidate of non-contact heart rate monitoring.