Flexible Sensor System for Pulse Detection and Blood Pressure Estimation

Abstract

Blood pressure changes every second and cannot be continuously monitored by conventional cuff method. In order to solve this problem, we proposed a blood pressure estimation system by pulse transit time (PTT) method. The system includes two devices; a master device which monitors ECG for starting time of the pulse wave, and a slave device for monitoring the propagated pulse wave at the wrist. Both devices have some sensors, such as an accelerometer and barometer, for monitoring the condition of the body and wrist. The detected condition will be used for compensation of the PTT data. As a result, estimation of the blood pressure by PTT is accurate enough comparing to sphygmomanometer for home use. In addition, the relation between barometric pressure and PTT by hand position was measured and used for establishing the correction equations.