Bio-signal Regularity Determination for Accurate Blood Pressure Estimation
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Solution Overview
Problem
The accuracy of blood pressure estimation using PPG signals is compromised by degraded signal quality due to arrhythmia or motion noise, leading to unreliable health monitoring outcomes.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus that determine the regularity of bio-signals by acquiring and binarizing pulse waveforms, calculating synchronization rates, and adjusting reference intervals to assess signal quality, allowing for accurate estimation of bio-information such as blood pressure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If PPG signals are used for blood pressure estimation, then non-invasive health monitoring is enabled, but signal quality degrades due to arrhythmia or motion noise reducing estimation accuracy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the PPG signal analysis into multiple components: pulse waveform extraction, slope waveform generation, binarization, and synchronization rate calculation. This segmentation allows each component to be processed independently, enabling the system to identify and focus on regular segments despite overall signal degradation from arrhythmia or motion noise.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of requiring the entire PPG signal to be of high quality, the patent applies partial action by analyzing only the regular portions of the signal. The synchronization rate calculation identifies segments with sufficient regularity, allowing blood pressure estimation to proceed using only those reliable portions, thus maintaining measurement precision even when part of the signal is degraded.
2Duration of action of moving object
If signal processing is performed on degraded bio-signals, then health monitoring can continue, but the reliability of estimation outcomes decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by calculating the synchronization rate before proceeding with blood pressure estimation. This preliminary assessment of signal regularity allows the system to determine whether the signal quality is sufficient for reliable estimation, enabling continuous monitoring while maintaining reliability thresholds.
Solution Approach 2:
The synchronization rate serves as a feedback mechanism that continuously monitors signal quality. When the synchronization rate indicates degraded signal quality, the system can adjust its processing accordingly, such as requesting additional signal acquisitions or adjusting estimation parameters, thus maintaining reliability over extended monitoring periods.
3Measurement precision
If regularity determination is added to the signal processing pipeline, then bio-information estimation accuracy improves, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the essential regularity information from complex PPG signals through a series of simplifying transformations: generating slope waveforms from pulse waveforms, binarizing the slope data, and calculating synchronization rates. This extraction process isolates the critical regularity metric from the complex original signal, improving estimation accuracy while keeping the added complexity manageable through focused feature extraction.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of determining regularity of a bio-signal is provided. The method of determining regularity of a bio-signal according may include acquiring a plurality of pulse waveforms of the bio-signal, acquiring a plurality of slope waveforms corresponding to the plurality of pulse waveforms, binarizing the plurality of slope waveforms, acquiring synchronization information of the plurality of pulse waveforms based on binarizing the plurality of pulse waveforms; acquiring a synchronization rate of a reference interval based on the synchronization information, and determining whether the bio-signal is regular or irregular based on the synchronization rate of the reference interval.