Wearables

Optical sensors for the measurement of the heart rate and the oxygen saturation of the blood make use of the light absorption in the blood, more specifically of the hemoglobin contained in the blood.

Heart rate monitoring

Light strikes the body tissue, and then is transmitted, absorbed and reflected (figure 1) – the larger the irradiated blood volume, the lower the amount of light reflected. As the blood volume in the arteries changes with the cardiac cycle, the heart rate results from the periodicity of the detector signal (figure 2). This optical measurement of the change of blood volume in the blood vessels is referred to as photoplethysmography (PPG). In practice, the sensor consisting of juxtaposed light source and detector is located directly on the skin, usually on the wrist or fingers. Due to the location the measurement is made at different wavelengths – green light has established itself as the best option for the wrist, red and infrared light for the finger.

Pulse oximetry

The oxygen saturation of the blood can be measured when infrared and red light are used at the same time (figure 3). This so-called pulse oximetry is based on the fact that hemoglobin (Hb) is changing its absorption behavior when it binds oxygen (oxyhemoglobin HbO2). The concentrations of these two variants of hemoglobin can be determined by measuring the absorption at two different wavelengths. This yields the oxygen saturation of the blood. Red (660 nm) and infrared (940 nm) light are the ideal choice, because here the absorption behavior of the two hemoglobin molecules deviates most from each other. In contrast to the pulse measurement, which is only considering the relative changes in light absorption, the light absorption of arterial blood must be measured in absolute terms here. In practice, the blood oxygen saturation can be expressed as a function of the ratio of the minimum and maximum detector signals (Imin/Imax) at the respective wavelength.