Development and characterization of new sensors for hemodynamic evaluation: Fibre Bragg sensor for arterial pulse waveform acquisition

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the world, arising their early prediction as a key aspect. The analysis of pulse wave propagation characteristics, such as velocity and morphology, can give important data about arterial stiffness, a parameter with growing significance in cardiovascular events prediction. In this paper it is presented a new optical fibre sensor to assess the pressure waveform in the carotid artery. The optical sensor is based on fibre Bragg grating technology, increasingly applied in several fields, including biomedical sensing due to its advantageous features. The Bragg sensor was characterized and tested in human carotids. It is presented a case study showing the great potential of Bragg technology in the assessment of the pressure waveform.