A database full of vital functions

FAU researchers have put together a collection of recordings of vital functions to facilitate further research.

Researchers at FAU have been recording the vital functions of patients in a study for monitoring heart sounds using radar. The data not only allows conclusions to be made about heart sounds, but also about further parameters such as pulse and breathing. To facilitate further research, the scientists have now published the data in a database.

The FAU team has developed a method of reliably detecting and diagnosing heart sounds using radar. In future, mobile radar devices could replace conventional stethoscopes and permanent touch-free monitoring of patients’ vital functions could be possible using stationary radar devices.

For the study, the young researchers measured the vital data of patients in various states of activity – while resting or doing sports. ‘We focused on heart sounds during our study. But there’s a lot more potential in this data,’ explains Kilin Shi, who is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Electronics Engineering.

For example, the data could be used to examine the correlation between heart sounds, the pulse signal and breathing in more detail enabling the discovery of new correlations. FAU researchers have therefore gathered their test data in a database and made it available to the scientific community.

The researchers have described the database in a paper, which has now been published in the journal Nature Scientific Data.

A detailed press release of the touch-free monitoring of vital functions is available in our press archive.

Further information

Kilin Shi
Institute of Electronics Engineering
Phone: + 49 9131 85 67733
kilin.shi@fau.de