Abstract

This work presents a simple, efficient and an easy-to-build ballistocardiography sys-tem using Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensor and a comprehensive assessment of relevant digital signal processing algorithms to simultaneously extract respiratory and cardiac frequency components from a cluttered mix Ballistocardiography (BCG) signal. The primary purpose of the current study is two-fold: first- to build an analog circuit for BCG signal amplification, and second to evaluate the performance of three state-of-the-art methods, namely: lowpass-highpass filter, weiner filter and ensemble empherical mode decomposition to simultaneously extract respiratory and cardiac frequency components from the BCG signal. BCG measurements from test subjects were used in this study and a commercial digital stethoscope was used to validate the performance of methods used in this study. In addition to the effective amplification of the BCG signal through proposed analog circuit configuration, we demonstrate that a simple low pass high pass filter configuration can be used for accurate measurement of cardiac and respiratory frequencies. Due to its simplicity, the proposed system can be suitably tailored to process BCG signal for simultaneous extraction of respiration and heart rate which can aid as an effective diagnostic tool for identifying critical disorders associated with lungs and heart dysfunction.

Keywords

optical ballistocardiography, BCG signal processing, FBG sensor, cardiac signal extraction