Thermal Imaging of the Superficial Temporal Artery: An Arterial Pulse Recovery Model

We present a novel model1 for measurement of the arterial pulse from the Superficial Temporal Artery (STA) using passive thermal Infra Red (IR) sensors. The proposed approach has a physical and physiological basis and as such is of fundamental nature. Thermal IR camera is used to capture the heat pattern from superficial arteries, and a blood vessel model is used to describe the pulsatile nature of the blood flow. A multresolution wavelet-based signal analysis approach is used to extract the arterial pulse waveform, which lends itself to various physiological measurements. We validate the results using a traditional contact vital-sign monitor as a ground truth. Eight people of different age, race and gender have been tested in our study consistent with IRB approval. The resultant arterial pulse waveforms exactly matched the ground-truth readings. The essence of our approach is the automatic detection of Region Of arterial pulse Measurement (ROM), from which the arterial pulse waveform...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CVPR
• Authors: Sergey Y. Chekmenev, Aly A. Farag, Edward A. Essock
• Keywords: Arterial Pulse Measurement, Arterial Pulse Waveform, Arterial Pulse Waveforms, Computer Vision, CVPR 2007, Non-contact Thermal Ir, Thermal Ir Camera