NONINVASIVE MEASUREMENT OF HEARTRATE, RESPIRATORY RATE, AND BLOOD OXYGENATION THROUGH WEARABLE DEVICES

The last two decades have shown a boom in the field of wearable sensing technology. Particularly in the consumer industry, growing trends towards personalized health have pushed new devices to report many vital signs, with a demand for high accuracy and reliability. The most common technique used to gather these vitals is photoplethysmography or PPG. PPG devices are ideal for wearable applications as they are simple, power-efficient, and can be implemented on almost any area of the body. Traditionally PPGs were utilized for capturing just heart rate, however, recent advancements in hardware and digital processing have led to other metrics including respiratory rate (RR) and peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2), to be reported as well. Our research investigates the potential for wearable devices to be used for outpatient apnea monitoring, and particularly the ability to detect opioid misuse resulting in respiratory depression. Ultimately, the long-term goal of this work is to develop a wearable device that can be used in the rehabilitation process to ensure both accountability and safety of the wearer. This document details contributions towards this goal through the design, development, and evaluation of a device called “Kick Ring”. Primarily, we investigate the ability of Kick Ring to record heartrate (HR), RR, and SpO2. Moreover, we show that the device can calculate RR in real time and can provide an immediate indication of abnormal events such as respiratory depression. Finally, we explore a novel method for reporting apnea events through the use of several PPG characteristics. Kick Ring reliably gathers respiratory metrics and offers a combination of features that does not exist in the current wearables space. These advancements will help to move the field forward, and eventually aid in early detection of life-threatening events.