Detection of Deformed PPG Waveforms Based on a Ratio of Their Average Accelerations

This paper presents a new method to detect deformed Photoplethysmogram (PPG) waveforms for sufficient accuracy of signal processing. The PPG waveforms have been applied in many health indicators, such as blood pressure, blood viscosity and blood vessel elasticity. Usually, the measurements using a sensitive signals require user awareness so that all the PPG waveforms are kept accurate. Namely, accuracy of the calculated indicators becomes lower when the PPG waveform is deformed due to motion artifacts. In particular, detection methods of deformed PPG waveforms are important for incorporating the health indicators into general fitness trackers to find the correct waveform or to remove deformed PPG waveforms from the measurement. Therefore, we propose a new method which detects a badly formed PPG waveform by monitoring a ratio of average accelerations. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the method for detecting a deformed PPG waveform.