Improving a Mirror-based Healthcare System for Real-time Estimation of Vital Parameters

Abstract

Contactless methods are widely used to measure vital signs from recorded or live videos using remote photoplethysmography (rPPG), which takes advantage of the slight skin color variation that occurs periodically on specific body regions with each blood pulse. However, existing rPPG-based solutions are typically expensive and not suitable for daily use at home for personal healthcare. To address this issue, we have recently developed a low-cost device that allows for the real-time estimation of vital signs using rPPG and can be easily integrated into any common home environment. The device consists of a smart mirror equipped with a camera that captures facial videos and extracts rPPG signals by processing video frames. One major limitation of this solution was its high sensitivity to abrupt head movements during video acquisition. This paper presents some advancements in the development of our smart device aimed at obtaining a more robust measurement of vital signs. Experimental results on live videos show that the new version of our system overcomes the limitations of the previous version, offering a more stable performance. Moreover, the new methodology shows improved performance compared to other state-of-the-art rPPG algorithms when tested on pre-recorded in-house videos from the UBFC-RPPG database.