Cardiac rate detection method based on the beam splitter prism

A new cardiac rate measurement method is proposed. Through the beam splitter prism, the common-path optical system of transmitting and receiving signals is achieved. By the focusing effect of the lens, the small amplitude motion artifact is inhibited and the signal-to-noise is improved. The cardiac rate is obtained based on the PhotoPlethysmoGraphy (PPG). We use LED as the light source and use photoelectric diode as the receiving tube. The LED and the photoelectric diode are on the different sides of the beam splitter prism and they form the optical system. The signal processing and display unit is composed by the signal processing circuit, data acquisition device and computer. The light emitted by the modulated LED is collimated by the lens and irradiates the measurement target through the beam splitter prism. The light reflected by the target is focused on the receiving tube through the beam splitter prism and another lens. The signal received by the photoelectric diode is processed by the analog circuit and obtained by the data acquisition device. Through the filtering and Fast Fourier Transform, the cardiac rate is achieved. We get the real time cardiac rate by the moving average method. We experiment with 30 volunteers, containing different genders and different ages. We compare the signals captured by this method to a conventional PPG signal captured concurrently from a finger. The results of the experiments are all relatively agreeable and the biggest deviation value is about 2bmp.