The increasing health challenges, particularly the global aging population, are straining healthcare systems and costs. This has driven interest in non-invasive, privacy-preserving medical monitoring systems. While polysomnography (PSG) is the standard for diagnosing disorders like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), its complexity, cost, and invasiveness highlight the need for alternatives. Ballistocardiography (BCG) has emerged as a promising non-invasive solution, capturing body movements caused by heartbeats and blood flow acceleration. BCG measures these forces, offering insights into cardiovascular performance and documenting the heart’s ballistic forces during blood ejection. This non-contact technology is valuable for monitoring respiration, heartbeat, blood pressure, and sleep, and we are exploring its potential in early disease screening and progression monitoring.

Related publications:

• [IMWUT/UbiComp ’23] Yandao Huang, Minghui Qiu, Lin Chen, Zhencan Peng, Qian Zhang and Kaishun Wu, “NF-Heart: A Near-field Non-contact Continuous User Authentication System via Ballistocardiogram”, Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, 7 (1), 2023.

Here is a demo: