Remote heart rate estimation system using LiDAR with region-scanning method

Remote photoplethysmography (rPPG), a technology that captures subtle blood volume changes in the skin to estimate heart rate, is becoming an important part of remote health monitoring. In this paper, we propose remote heart rate estimation system using indirect Time-of-Flight (ToF) LiDAR. The proposed system scans specific face area by region-scanning method using the scanner of LiDAR to acquire depth video and IR amplitude video. The acquired multi-modal videos are used to estimate the heart rate with a learning-based algorithm. To obtain real-time data by scanning the region-of-interest (ROI), we design an FPGA-based raster scanning and depth calculation algorithm for the proposed region-scanning method. We also compare different face parts to find the best area for heart rate estimation. The proposed system includes evaluation results for real-time heart rate estimation at a distance of more than 1 meter.