Accurate Ballistocardiogram Based Heart Rate Estimation Using an Array of Load Cells in a Hospital Bed

• Published in: IEEE journal of biomedical and health informatics Vol. 25; no. 9; pp. 3373 - 3383
• Main Authors: Jung, Hewon, Kimball, Jacob P., Receveur, Timothy, Agdeppa, Eric D., Inan, Omer T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.09.2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Arrays; Ballistocardiograms; Ballistocardiography; Bed load; Confidence intervals; Data acquisition; Electrocardiography; Estimation; Heart beat; Heart rate; Hospitals; Load cells; Load distribution; Monitoring; non-invasive sensing; patient monitoring; physiological monitoring; Posture; Probability density function; Probability density functions; Sensors; Statistical analysis; Supine position; Vibration; Vibration monitoring
• ISSN: 2168-2194; 2168-2208; 2168-2208
• DOI: 10.1109/JBHI.2021.3066885

The ballistocardiogram (BCG), a cardiac vibration signal, has been widely investigated for continuous monitoring of heart rate (HR). Among BCG sensing modalities, a hospital bed with multi-channel load-cells could provide robust HR estimation in hospital setups. In this work, we present a novel array processing technique to improve the existing HR estimation algorithm by optimizing the fusion of information from multiple channels. The array processing includes a Gaussian curve to weight the joint probability according to the reference value obtained from the previous inter-beat-interval (IBI) estimations. Additionally, the probability density functions were selected and combined according to their reliability measured by <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">q</tex-math></inline-formula>-values. We demonstrate that this array processing significantly reduces the HR estimation error compared to state-of-the-art multi-channel heartbeat detection algorithms in the existing literature. In the best case, the average mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.76 bpm in the supine position was achieved compared to 2.68 bpm and 1.91 bpm for two state-of-the-art methods from the existing literature. Moreover, the lowest error was found in the supine posture (1.76 bpm) and the highest in the lateral posture (3.03 bpm), thus elucidating the postural effects on HR estimation. The IBI estimation capability was also evaluated, with a MAE of 16.66 ms and confidence interval (95%) of 38.98 ms. The results demonstrate that improved HR estimation can be obtained for a bed-based BCG system with the multi-channel data acquisition and processing approach described in this work.