Breathing Detection by Far Infrared (FIR) Imaging in a Home Health Care System

In this paper we propose a breath detection system that uses far-infrared (FIR) cameras. The principle is that the camera detects the temperature change at the nasal hole due to breathing. Experiments show that this system provides continual breathing observation in a remote non-intrusive manner. Toward the practical use of this system, we test and discuss three factors: head rotation, distance between camera and human, and camera angle.