Respiration-rate signal extraction from heart rate

There is an ongoing need for more sensitive sensors and instrumentation to monitor parameters of human physiological functions. Often it is desired that this measurement process be as non-intrusive as possible, thereby requiring lightweight, high performance sensors and data acquisition systems. In the current application it is desired to measure and extract as much information from a single non-intrusive sensor as possible to avoid encumbering mission personnel with motion-inhibiting harnesses. One particular signal processing task of interest is extraction of respiration information by analysis of heart rate (HR). Thus, signal-processing algorithms are described which perform this task using communication, non-uniform sampling, and spectrum analysis techniques.