Advances in Photoplethysmogram
and Electrocardiogram Signal Analysis
for Wearable Applications
G. R. Ashisha and X. Anitha Mary
Abstract Photoplethysmography (PPG) is a simple and noninvasive optical method
for monitoring people’s physiological parameters like oxygen level of blood, pulse
rate, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, blood viscosity, etc. PPG is an optical
technique that uses a pulse oximeter to take the measurements. Most of the pulse
oximeter has light-emitting diodes (LED’s) and photodetector placed at the upper-
most layer of the skin to obtain the variation of blood volume in the microvessels of a
body. The electrocardiogram (ECG) is the method that shows the action of the heart,
and it helps to diagnose any heart-related diseases. Analysis of the PPG signal and
ECG signal will help the researchers and doctors to detect various cardiovascular
diseases. Measuring the physiological parameters is very essential for people with
old age, a woman in pregnancy, and all patients with any other serious situations.
PPG technology is becoming familiar because of its easy access, portability, and
low cost. Technological development in digital sensors, mobiles, wearable devices,
and wireless transmission makes continuous and real-time monitoring feasible. This
paper aims to show the present improvements and difficulties of ECG and PPG based
monitoring systems.
Keywords Photoplethysmogram · Electrocardiogram · Noninvasive · Wearable
devices
1 Introduction
Wearable medical care devices are one of the quickest developing markets of this
decennary due to the enormous demand to track elderly population and long-term
illness. Scientists from unrelated technology of science are becoming interested and
G. R. Ashisha (B ) · X. Anitha Mary
Instrumentation Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore,
Tamil Nadu, India
e-mail: grashisha27@gmail.com
X. Anitha Mary
e-mail: anithamary@karunya.edu
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
J. D. Peter et al. (eds.), Intelligence in Big Data Technologies—Beyond the Hype,
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 1167,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5285-4_52
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