In-depth empowerment of digital technology, making smart health at your fingertips

Against the background of the epidemic and the aging of the population, people's attention and investment in health conditions are constantly increasing. As we all know, vital sign data is an important basis for judging personal health status, and a large number of physiological indicators can accurately and directly reflect people's health status. To collect various vital sign data in order to monitor the health status and actively prevent the occurrence of diseases in the home environment, digital technology is inseparable. This is also an important starting point to promote intelligent health management and achieve healthy aging.


In recent years, the concept of vital signs monitoring has gradually penetrated into the non-medical field, and a variety of vital signs monitoring products have emerged. The use method that requires wearing a bundle and sticking to the skin often gives people a strong sense of restraint, especially when performing sleep monitoring, the use of wearing a bundle can even change the user's sleeping habits, aggravate anxiety and anxiety, and be counterproductive. For this reason, non-contact vital sign sensing technology represented by BCG and millimeter-wave radar is gradually entering the historical stage and becoming a recipe for digital health management.


The concept of Ballistocardiography (BCG) was first proposed in 1877. Its essence is the weak change of external pressure on the surface of the human body caused by the heart beat and arterial blood flow, and it is the mechanical characteristic of the heart. Its medical value was once comparable to electrocardiography (ECG). However, due to the instability and difficulty of measurement, it was gradually forgotten in the laboratory. However, since the beginning of this century, BCG technology has become a research hotspot of major research institutions at home and abroad. In addition to its own potential medical value and sensor technology advancements, the natural fit between BCG and IoT technology has also made people more interested in Its comprehensive value has new expectations.


Everything is a health monitor. The
BCG signal acquisition device consists of sensors and a number of signal conditioning circuits. If the high-precision sensors are "hidden" in suitable weight scales, pillows, mattresses, tables and chairs, vital signs can be monitored without contact and without disturbing the user's normal work and rest. And these ordinary household daily necessities can also be transformed into high-precision "life health monitors" with the blessing of BCG technology.


Science has long proved that the heart can cause a series of corresponding periodic motions and vibrations in the human body during the beating process. After these signals are coupled through the sensor circuit, they are then passed through differential preamplifier circuits , multi-stage amplifier circuits, DC blocking circuits, and wave traps. circuit, band-pass filter circuit , and finally obtain a valuable and analyzable BCG signal. The BCG signal itself is very weak, and is easily disturbed by breathing, body movement, and power frequency noise. As a result, the BCG signal obtained by direct measurement is often submerged in noise, and the physiological characteristic information such as heart rate and respiration contained in it cannot be obtained. In order to effectively identify the BCG signal, it is also necessary to perform noise reduction processing on the signal to effectively restore the characteristics of the BCG signal. The commonly used noise reduction method is the wavelet transform method. In the process of piezoelectric sensor and signal conditioning circuit processing, conversion and noise reduction, the BCG signal is converted into a millivolt-level identifiable voltage signal, and finally the processed signal is converted by the chip to complete the analog-to-digital conversion. With the help of the BCG signal, the value of the BCG signal is displayed on the display side, which is convenient for subsequent calculation processing and analysis and evaluation.


The BCG sensing device based on "piezoelectric passive sensing technology" can accurately sense the vibration force of the heart and breathing chest and abdomen of the human body in resting or sleeping scenarios, and measure important vital signs such as heartbeat interval and respiration. With the help of heartbeat interval and respiratory fluctuation feature extraction and modeling technology, the detection of obstructive and central sleep apnea events in non-contact scenarios can also be realized, so as to truly plan ahead and monitor the health status in real time before the disease occurs.



In addition to BCG, millimeter-wave radar can also be used as a non-contact vital sign sensing technology to monitor people's health status . Millimeter-wave radar works by emitting electromagnetic waves to the outside world, and anything in its path reflects the signal back. By capturing and processing reflected signals, radar systems can determine the distance, velocity and angle of objects. Due to its short wavelength, millimeter-wave radar has extremely high accuracy and can detect sub-millimeter-level subtle movements, such as human body micro-motions caused by breathing and heartbeats. More importantly, since millimeter-wave radar does not collect any sensitive data such as image information, it is especially suitable for use in home environments with high privacy requirements. This kind of high-sensitivity, non-contact, strong anti-interference, non-invasion of privacy technical route has broad application prospects in markets such as home health monitoring and smart health care.


Avnet has developed a millimeter-wave radar-based vital signs monitoring solution. The solution can be integrated into a bedside lamp, and uses the built-in millimeter-wave radar to detect vital signs such as breathing, heartbeat, snoring, etc. in a non-contact manner. It can be widely used in infant monitoring, sleep quality monitoring, and elderly care for the elderly. etc. scene. This vital signs monitoring solution designed by Avnet is equipped with core devices such as Infineon's millimeter-wave radar and NXP's microcontroller , with high performance and low power consumption. In the future, Avnet will give full play to its own advantages, actively participate in the in-depth cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and work together with industry partners to make greater contributions to the development of smart health care.

digital technology

The "nerve endings" of the medical Internet of Things are
found in medical monitoring products, and various types of monitors abound. However, there are too many application scenarios for large-scale medical equipment that cannot be reached, and this provides sufficient supplies for home-use vital signs sensing equipment. development space. With the support of 5G, artificial intelligence and other related technologies, household non-contact vital sign sensing equipment is expected to become the "nerve terminal" of the medical Internet of Things, supplementing and improving the clinical scenarios that monitoring products reach. This will enable thousands of users to establish a personalized health model even if they are outside the hospital, and realize the health management of the whole life cycle. Non-sensing and light-management terminal products such as BCG equipment and millimeter-wave radar-based health status monitoring equipment are bound to occupy a place in the future wave of smart sensing, smart life, and smart medical care.

Top