Short Distance Impedance Pneumography

Gold-standards for biosignal acquisition require body-spanning sensor positioning which is contradictory to the high integration of modern wearable medical monitors. In applications where obtrusiveness can decrease accuracy, as in sleep monitoring, compact sensor configurations are not only a matter of convenience. To acquire respiratory signals, most systems rely on nasal cannula pressure sensors or inductance plethysmography. Another well-established method is the impedance pneumography, where we aim to contribute to the field of short distance electrode configurations. Evaluating distances down to 8 cm we report linear correlations above 0.85 with respect to a pneumotachometer reference. We estimate the respiratory rate with an error below 0.2 bpm. Inspiratory and expiratory phase detection is possible with an error below 2.5 %. Using a first order polynomial model we estimated the respiratory flow with a relative error of down to 19 % at 8 cm. We conclude that short distance impedance pneumography is feasible and rough flow and volume estimates are possible using linear models. Further research regarding shorter distances and calibration is of great interest.