Toward a Universal BCG Validation Using a Mechanical Emulator

BallistoCardioGraphy (BCG) is a contactless technique used to measure multiple vital parameters such as heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), and their variability (resp. HRV and RRV). It provides an interesting alternative to conventional skin-contact techniques like ElectroCardioGraphy (ECG) or PhotoPlethysmoGraphy (PPG). This paper proposes a universal performance evaluation solution for any BCG system, including an easy-to-reproduce mechanical emulator, coherent and standard metrics to describe respiratory and cardiac signals, and open-access impulsion files to simulate the same scenario many times. Furthermore, by providing reproducible and customized BCG signals, such equipment will avoid clinical trials necessary in the early stages of BCG solution development. Experimental results show waveform strong similarities with emulated data (correlation up to 0.82±0.12).