What if monitoring your heart rate was as easy as listening to music while you run? Thanks to advances in space technology, an iPhone will soon be able to do double duty: keep you in shape with your favorite artists and also your vital signs.
Thanks to support from ESA's Technology Transfer Programme (ESA TTP), Swiss company CSEM this year created a final prototype for its Pulsear instrument. A slim unit integrated into a normal earpiece uses infrared signals to see how fast your heart is beating. It sends infrared signals through the tissues in your ear. A thin photodiode records the results and sends the information through the headset connections to the instrument plugged into your phone.
The result is an accurate reading of your heart rate, without the discomfort of having to wear a chest strap.
"A lot of people listen to music when they exercise, and there are also a lot of people who find belts uncomfortable," commented CSEM's Andrea Ridolfi, MD. He added, "So we thought it made sense to assess heart rate by ear."
CSEM's primary attempts to monitor heart rhythm were unsuccessful, according to Dr. Ridolfi, because the available technology era not sophisticated enough. But that era before CSEM developed a complex chest sensor to assess astronauts' blood oxygen levels for ESA's Long Term Medical Survey system. "Once it was done we thought 'let's recycle this,'" Dr. Ridolfi said.
Thanks to a grant from ESA TTP's Technology Transfer Demonstrator initiative, CSEM created the prototype. The initiative supports the development of new hardware and software to bridge the gap between space technology and terrestrial use.
An iPhone application displays the heart rate on the screen and compares, for example, this week's running pace with the previous week. People who have tested the app during their fitness sessions have given the device high marks. While the initial prototype assessed only heart rate, future versions could easily be adapted to assess additional vital signs, such as blood oxygen levels. This could serve for use in a variety of medical applications.
"Technology transfer from space has enormous potential to encourage innovation in areas that you would not expect to find space technology," explained Frank M. Salzgeber, head of ESA TTP. "ESA TTP wants to help European industry apply sophisticated space solutions in their markets."