For the measuring of the heartbeat, researchers at Utah State University don’t need an Apple Watch Stethoscope with the help of video camera. The inventors named Professor of electrical engineering Jake Gunther and his former student Nate Ruben are USU-patented technology that can estimates the heart rate using the video camera and specialized software.
According to Gunther “a human heart circulates blood through their arteries and veins, a light absorbed by the human skin changes by measurable amounts. The light is not visible with naked eye, but when human system processes the images from camera they are pretty obvious. The values of blue, red and green can be recorded through video cameras whereas green channels gives information that makes heart rate assumption possible.
The whole process is been describes by the inventors that the haemoglobin in the blood has an suction peak for green light so, when the heart pushes blood into arteries near the skin resulting in more absorption of light than reflection. The green values were fewer when observed from the camera. The system they worked on processes the colour data and the whole data is further computed at an average over the regions of image where skin is visible on the face, neck and arms.
The hospitals tools can be replaced with the new invention as this contactless monitoring system could revolutionize medical equipment and consumer products that include baby monitors and exercise gear. It also monitors blood pressure and blood oxygen levels. The co-inventor of USU explains that the operation system is similar like to pulse oximeter but instead of they are trying for light being reflected form it not transmitted through skin tissue.
The idea for the heart assumption came into existence because of Ruben and his wife had their first child similar like most mothers, Ruben’s wife was constantly checking whether the kid slept or not which led to the introduction of such invention. Other than this he was experimenting over webcams to assume heartbeat. Even after successful invention they have faced many hurdles in building this invention.
