Remote monitoring of camera based respiration rate estimated by using occlusion of dot pattern

Respiratory Rate (RR) is one of the key vital signs that is routinely monitored by medical professionals and health care providers. Remote monitoring of it helps in detecting several clinical conditions and low-cost sensors are needed in telemedicine. Most of the current day measurement systems for RR involve the use of sensors that are in contact with the subject, causing discomfort. In case of neonates, this may lead to serious skin infections and irritations. Hence the need for unobtrusive and non-contact respiratory rate monitoring arises. We propose a novel system and method to easily estimate the RR of subjects. It comprises of mounting a dotted pattern on one of the two sides of the bed in which the subject is resting. A camera(s) placed to the opposite side of it is used to monitor the dots and to measure the RR. When the subject breathes, the number of dots that will not be visible to the camera varies. They will be used to calculate the respiration signal and subsequently derive the RR from it. We evaluate the performance of our scheme using several videos and show that the method works well.