Assessment of source separation techniques to extract vital parameters from videos

Abstract

Camera-based photoplethysmography is a contactless mean to assess vital parameters, such as heart rate and respiratory rate. In the field of camera-based photoplethysmography, blind source separation (BSS) techniques have been extensively applied to cope with artifacts and noise. Despite their wide usage, there is no consensus that common BSS approaches contribute to an improved analysis of camera-based photoplethysmograms (cbPPG). This contribution compares previously proposed multispectral BSS techniques to a novel spatial BSS approach for heart rate extraction from cbPPG. Our analysis indicates that the application of BSS techniques not necessarily improves cbPPG's analysis but signal properities like the signal-to-noise-ratio should be considered before i applying BSS techniques.