Chinese researchers achieve contactless ECG monitoring

Chinese researchers have designed a contactless monitoring method for the electrocardiogram (ECG) which does not require application of an electrode or the removal of clothing, according to a recent article published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

Current ECG monitoring methods are based on the use of body-attached electrodes, which lead to an uncomfortable user experience. Therefore, the need for contactless ECG monitoring was identified.

Cardiac electrical-mechanical activities couple in a well-coordinated pattern. The researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China achieved the contactless ECG monitoring by breaking the boundary between the cardiac mechanical and electrical activities, according to the research article.

Specifically, they developed a millimeter-wave radar system to contactlessly measure cardiac mechanical activity and reconstruct the ECG. To measure the cardiac mechanical activity comprehensively, the researchers proposed a series of signal processing algorithms to extract 4D cardiac motions from radio frequency (RF) signals.

The experimental results showed that the contactless ECG measurements achieved timing accuracy of cardiac electrical events with a median error below 14 milliseconds, while the accuracy of the morphological median reached 90 percent.