Measuring Heart Rate with a Heat Flux Sensor

Different wearable biosignal measurement applications require minimally obtrusive and highly sensitive sensors and methods of transducing the heart pulse into an electric signal. At the same time, the sensors should have minimal power consumption and preferably provide information about more than just the heart rate. In this study, a method employing a heat flux sensor for recording the pulsatile cardiac component of an arterial pulse waveform is presented. The output signals of a conventional photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor and a heat flux sensor were recorded and compared with one another. The results show that a heat flux sensor can be used for measurement of heart pulse, in addition to previously reported advantages of using the sensor for wearable metabolic heat measurement.