Physiological Computing Gaming - Use of Electrocardiogram as an Input for Video Gaming

There are several ways of creating a human-computer interaction (HCI). One of those is physiological computing (PC) i.e. the use of body signals as a real-time input to control a user interface. In this paper one describes the development of a new solution in which electrocardiography (ECG) signals are used as input for video gaming. The solution includes: a tailored belt with conductive textiles as ECG electrodes; a specialized data acquisition board (Bitalino); signal processing algorithms implemented in Python for signal filtering, QRS complex detection and heart rate calculation; and use of Unity 3D, a game development engine, in which the heart rate is used as an input of a proof-of-concept PC video game – FlappyHeartPC. With this project we conclude that nowadays it is possible to build tools that can make the bridge between the machine and the human body in order to respond to innovations required in the gaming business.

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