Particle Filtering and Sensor Fusion for Robust Heart Rate Monitoring Using Wearable Sensors

This paper describes a novel methodology leveraging particle filters for the application of robust heart rate monitoring in the presence of motion artifacts. Motion is a key source of noise that confounds traditional heart rate estimation algorithms for wearable sensors due to the introduction of spurious artifacts in the signals. In contrast to previous particle filtering approaches, we formulate the heart rate itself as the only state to be estimated, and do not rely on multiple specific signal features. Instead, we design observation mechanisms to leverage the known steady, consistent nature of heart rate variations to meet the objective of continuous monitoring of heart rate using wearable sensors. Furthermore, this independence from specific signal features also allows us to fuse information from multiple sensors and signal modalities to further improve estimation accuracy. The signal processing methods described in this work were tested on real motion artifact affected electrocardiogram and photoplethysmogram data with concurrent accelerometer readings. Results show promising average error rates less than 2 beats/min for data collected during intense running activities. Furthermore, a comparison with contemporary signal processing techniques for the same objective shows how the proposed implementation is also computationally more efficient for comparable performance.