Feasibility of Heart Rate and Respiratory Rate Estimation by Inertial Sensors Embedded in a Virtual Reality Headset.

Virtual reality (VR) headsets, with embedded micro-electromechanical systems, have the potential to assess the mechanical heart's functionality and respiratory activity in a non-intrusive way and without additional sensors by utilizing the ballistocardiographic principle. To test the feasibility of this approach for opportunistic physiological monitoring, thirty healthy volunteers were studied at rest in different body postures (sitting (SIT), standing (STAND) and supine (SUP)) while accelerometric and gyroscope data were recorded for 30 s using a VR headset (Oculus Go, Oculus, Microsoft, USA) simultaneously with a 1-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) signal for mean heart rate (HR) estimation. In addition, longer VR acquisitions (50 s) were performed under controlled breathing in the same three postures to estimate the respiratory rate (RESP).