Motion tolerance in wearable sensors - The challenge of motion artifact

Motion artifact is a major limitation in most practical implementations of wearable health monitoring devices. Especially in applications requiring continuous monitoring and high specificity, motion artifact can render a solution infeasible in real world use cases. We believe that the single most important technical challenge that will decide the success of wearable biomedical sensor systems is signal integrity. Principle possibilities to reduce artifact are explained, and some historical and modern examples are given, showing the relevance of this subject. However, still no proper models for artifact exist, nor is there a generalized approach to deal with this problem. This paper intends to call to attention the need for a common understanding in the community for a method of addressing this area objectively, and proposes next steps toward this goal.