Measurement of the heart rate of passengers and flight personnel using camera-based photoplethysmography

Continuous measurement of the heart rate of passengers or flight personnel during a flight can be advantageous for various reasons. However, contact-based in-flight measurement is not practical due to the limitations associated with it. However, it is also possible to determine heart rate without contact using camera images or video data. In this work, the applicability of such a contactless, image-based measurement of heart rate in an aircraft cabin is investigated. Using a conventional USB camera, heart rate was determined by analyzing color intensity changes in specific areas of the face. The developed system was evaluated in terms of its robustness to head movements and typical vibrations in an aircraft. The results showed that a simple camera can be used to reliably estimate heart rate under certain constraints. It was also shown that the vibrations of an aircraft do not affect the accuracy of the estimated heart rate.