Research on Robust Measurement Method of Heart Rate Using Remote Photoplethysmography Based on Adversarial Learning Network With High and Low Frequency Features

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems for video technology Vol. 35; no. 6; pp. 5208 - 5222
• Main Authors: Zhai, Dezhao, Chen, Wei, Ding, Yinghao, Yu, Ming, Li, Qinwei, Wu, Hang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.06.2025; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Accuracy; adversarial learning; Adversarial machine learning; Datasets; Deep learning; Feature extraction; Frequency measurement; Heart rate; high and low frequency feature; Illumination; illumination change; Image resolution; Learning; Lighting; Low frequencies; Luminous intensity; Measurement methods; measuring heart rate (HR); Remote photoplethysmography (rPPG); resolution change; Robustness; Signal generation; Signal resolution; Spatial resolution
• ISSN: 1051-8215; 1558-2205
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSVT.2025.3527972

Remote Photoplethysmography (rPPG) is a non-contact method for measuring heart rate (HR) through facial video, breaking the constraints of contact measurements and offering broad application prospects. However, in real monitoring scenarios, the distance of subjects and facial illumination often vary. This leads to degradation of rPPG signals due to changes in facial resolution and light intensity. This paper presents the High and Low Frequency Feature Adversarial Learning Network (HLFF-AL), which utilizes feature space interpolation and composite feature capture to perform multi-band global and local signal extraction. By adopting an adversarial learning strategy, it enhances the capability to capture semantic information of rPPG under varying resolutions and lighting, bridging the differences in rPPG signal generation due to resolution changes. While maintaining accuracy in HR measuring, the robustness of the network is improved to achieve robust measurement of HR via rPPG. Even under high-resolution conditions, the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) for the three public datasets-unchanging lighting (COHFACE, UBFC-rPPG) and varying lighting (BUAA-MIHR)-reached 1.10 bpm, 1.64 bpm, and 4.41 bpm, respectively, with a mere 0.29 bpm difference in MAE between high and low resolutions on the BUAA-MIHR dataset. This demonstrates that HLFF-AL can predict more robust rPPG signals in various resolutions and lighting scenarios, achieving competitive results compared to state-of-the-art methods.