Enhanced heart rate estimation based on face features

Health care systems have become essential parts of today's societies. However, the COVID-19 virus pandemic has highlighted the challenges that health care systems face. This need has encouraged scientists to improve these systems by supporting the Internet of Things (IoT) architectures and providing more contactless sensors. Still, traditional equipment based on using a contact sensor to measure vital signs, such as the heart rate, faces problems with accuracy and can have psychological effects on patients. The proposed solution aims to monitor the heart rate through non-contact measurement using a smart camera. This objective was achieved by applying an intelligent algorithm to a facial video sequence. This paper attempts to estimate the heart rate based on the color variation of the forehead skin. Specifically, the proposed method aimed to accurately estimate the heart rate in the standard condition and in the case of darker skin where the variation of the skin color was only slightly changed. The results proved that the estimation's accuracy could reach 98%.