Camera-based Non-contact Respiratory Rate Estimation

A non-contact-based system for estimating the respiration rate of individuals using a mobile phone camera is presented in this paper. Respiration rate is an important vital sign that indicates the number of breaths a person takes per minute and is commonly used in medical assessments. The method involves recording videos of the pit of the neck region using the mobile phone camera and analyzing the changes in light intensity within the video frames. By processing the obtained signals from the video frames, the system accurately estimates the respiration rate. The effectiveness of the proposed method and the estimated respiration rates are compared with rates obtained using two other methods: a spirometer, which is a device used to measure lung function and manual counting. The evaluation is conducted on a group of 34 participants who are instructed to breathe rapidly to simulate varying respiration rates. The results indicate that the presented method achieves an accuracy of over 80% compared with existing state-of-the-art methods. The standard deviation of & PLUSMN;3% suggests a relatively consistent performance across participants. The calculated error between the estimated respiration rates and the reference rates obtained from the spirometer and manual counting validates the reliability of the proposed approach. Additionally, the paper highlights the advantages of this system, including its cost-effectiveness and suitability for remote monitoring and mass screening. The non-contact nature of the method reduces the need for physical contact with patients, which could be especially beneficial in situations where hygiene and infection control are crucial. The paper also outlines plans for future work, which involve validating the method with larger sample sizes and exploring its potential applications in various clinical scenarios.