Wearable POF-based heart-rate monitor

A wearable speckle-based heart-rate monitoring device is presented. It uses a lead of plastic optical fiber (POF), as the sensing element. The system includes a microprocessor-powered portable system that controls a laser and a CMOS camera to take real-time measurements. A simple optical system is considered to provide portable capabilities. Several processing algorithm alternatives are assessed, using a device under test for emulating the heart-rate mechanical vibrations. Errors below 1% are achieved for some filter and processing techniques.