Non-contact Heart Rate Measurement based on Camera Image

The non-contact measurement of the heart rate while the user is watching TV can bring many promising applications to our home such as user's preference estimation, automatic digest edition and fitness. We developed a non-contact heart rate measurement method using camera image so that users can measure the heart rate without any attachments. In previous research, it was not possible to measure the heart rate with precision when a person was in movement. In this proposed method, we can expect that it will be applied to various applications since we can accurately measure the heart rate even while moving the face. The results showed a performance of detection error smaller than 3 bpm for lightning conditions over 500 lux, distances up to 6.0 m and viewing angles up to 30 degrees. We discussed the inter subjects deviation of the error and measured the performance when the frame rate and the time window of FFT were changed. In order to provide the heart rate information to the users, we developed a method to display the pulse timing by overlapping a red blinking signal on the user's face.