2017 IEEE International Conference on Vehicular Electronics and Safety (ICVES)

June 27-28, 2017, Vienna, Austria

The PhysioBelt: A Safety Belt Integrated Sensor

System for Heart Activity and Respiration
Lennart Leicht, Pascal Vetter, Steffen Leonhardt and Daniel Teichmann
Philips Chair for Medical Information Technology
RWTH Aachen University
52074 Aachen, Germany
Email: leicht@hia.rwth-aachen.de

Abstract—In this work, a sensor system for physiological driver
state monitoring is presented which is integrated onto a safety
belt. The system incorporates two different sensor concepts:
An optical system intended for heart activity monitoring and
a magnetic induction (MI) system for respiration monitoring.
The optical sensor system emits infrared (IR) light from LEDs
towards the body of the driver. A part of the light passes through
the clothing of the driver, is reflected in the body and detected
by a photosensor in the optical sensor system. Light reflection
varies during heart beat intervals and can hence be used for heart
beat detection. The MI system is composed of a high-frequency
oscillator incorporating an embroidered coil on the safety belt.
During inspiration, the orientation of the driver changes with
respect to the coil, which, due to a change in permittivity, results
in a frequency change. Hence, respiration can be detected by
observing the oscillator frequency. The belt-integrated sensor
system has been evaluated in a laboratory experiment. Using a
reference ECG as heart beat reference and a piezoelectric sensor
belt strapped around the thorax as a respiration reference, the
feasibility of the sensor system was investigated. First results
showed a readily apparent respiratory signal and a good heart
beat signal. It was shown that the monitoring of heart and breath
activity is indeed possible.
I. INTRODUCTION
The human factor is an important parameter in traffic safety.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 94 %
of all critical pre-crash events are caused by the driver [1].
Therefore, driver state monitoring is an important research area
which attracts more and more attention. Systems for sleepiness
detection are already commercially available today. However,
in most cases, the driver lacks proper recognition of the traffic
situation or makes an incorrect decision, so an assessment of
e.g. driver distraction might be a more beneficial research area.
Current systems rely on vehicle data (e.g. lane position) and
driver inputs to the vehicle (e.g. steering wheel operation [2]).
Both methods share one shortcoming: They assess the driver
state indirectly based on the vehicle status and the actions
of the driver. Both indicators can be expected to be only
loosely connected to the inner state of the driver and to present
large variations among driver populations. Thus, unconscious
parameters, e.g. the eye lid closing for sleepiness detection
(PERCLOS metric [3]) are preferable as being closer to the
inner driver state. Probably the approach closest to the inner
driver state is the assessment of physiological parameters. For
instance, stress will activate the sympathetic nervous system
which increases the heart rate. Using an electrocardiogram
(ECG), this parameter can be evaluated and be used as a stress
metric [4]. In previous research, non-contact capacitive ECG
systems have been successfully integrated into car seats [5].
These systems do not require the attachment of electrodes on
the body as in conventional ECG systems, contacting the seat
with the back is sufficient. Under highway conditions, a high
coverage rate of 94 % has been achieved. It is conceivable
to add additional sensor systems for ECG measurements to
further increase the coverage rate in a data fusion process.
Previous research has proposed the integration of ECG systems
into the steering wheel [6]. However, this approach has two
drawbacks: Proper contact between driver and steering wheel
electrodes cannot be guaranteed, e.g. due to single-handed
or lazy steering. In addition, in future autonomous driving
scenarios, there will probably be no contact between driver
and steering wheel in autonomous mode. Apart from the seat
and the steering wheel, another vehicle part has close contact
to the driver: The safety belt. Due to the proximity to the
heart and lung, it can be considered to be a good place
for the integration of physiological sensors. Other research
groups have integrated a ballistocardiogram (BCG) system into
the belt which measures movements of the body surface [7].
Since respiration and heart beats also cause movements of
the body surface, they can be measured by the BCG system.
However, due to the large amount of vibrations inside a
vehicle, evaluation of the BCG signal can be expected to be
difficult, in particular in case of poor road conditions. In this
work, an alternative safety belt sensor system for the detection
of respiration and heart activity is presented. It incorporates an
optical sensor for the heart activity and a magnetic induction
(MI) based sensor for respiratory monitoring. These sensor
concepts have been demonstrated before [9], [10] and are
introduced into a new application in this work.
II. M ATERIALS AND M ETHODS
A. Measurement Principle
1) Magnetic Induction Sensor: The measurement of respi-
ration is based on a Colpitts oscillator. For this oscillator type,
a large variety of circuit implementation variants exist. The
variant used in this work is presented in schematic form in Fig.
1. The oscillator consists of two capacitors, one inductor coil, a
resistor and an active inverter gate. The oscillation frequency
is determined by the dimensions of the capacitors, resistors

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Fig. 1. Principle of the magnetic induction sensor. The two capacities, the
coil and the inverting gate implement an oscillator circuit. In case the material
in proximity of the coil is changed, e.g. by bringing the body of the driver
closer to the coil, the oscillator frequency will change.
and the coil. Apart from geometrical factors, the inductance,
resistance and capacitance of the coil are influenced by the
material close to the coil. For example, ferrite is used to
increase the inductance of power coils. In case the material
close to the coil is changed, a change of frequency will occur
in the Colpitts oscillator. If the coil is integrated into a seat
belt, the body of the driver will move closer to the coil during
inspiration since his thorax will expand. Thus, by observing
the oscillator frequency, the respiration can be monitored. To
achieve a sufficient sensitivity, a rather high frequency has to
be set - typically 10 MHz is a good choice. As a drawback of
this sensor concept, it must be noted that every movement of
the body relative to the safety belt will affect the sensor signal.
Thus, movements e.g. during acceleration will cause artifacts,
which need to be separated from the respiration signal, e.g.
using a bandpass filter.
Fig. 2. Drawing of the optical sensor principle.
2) Optical Sensor: The measurement of the heart rate
is accomplished using an optical sensor composed of four
LEDs and one photodiode. A sketch of the measurement
principle is depicted in Fig. 2. Basically, the sensor operates
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as a reflectance photoplethysmography (rPPG) device: Light
is emitted by the LEDs and is partly absorbed, partly reflected
in all materials in front of the sensor, in particular the clothing
and the body of the driver. The light absorption in the clothing
depends on the number of clothing layers, the thickness and
the absorption factor in the IR spectrum. High absorption rates
in the clothing can be overcome by increasing the power of
the IR LEDs. Light absorption in the body can be separated
into a static part (e.g. due to skin pigmentation) and a variable
part that is attributed to the variable blood content in the blood
vessels during the cardiac cycle. During the systole, the heart
muscle is contracted and blood is pressed into the arterioles.
During the following decontraction, denoted as diastole, the
arterioles empty through the capillaries into the venous system.
Hence, cyclic changes can be measured in the signal that
are synchronous to the heart rate. However, compared to the
static part, the changes are rather small. A comprehensive
introduction into PPG systems can be found in [11].
B. Hardware Implementation
Due to regulatory and safety considerations, it was decided
not to modify the safety belt by directly integrating sensors
into it. Instead, a textile cover was constructed that can be
slipped over the safety belt. As material, denim fabric (cotton)
was used. The sensors are placed on the side directed towards
the driver. For assembly, the cover can be opened and closed
using velcro tape on the opposite side.
Fig. 3. The embroidered coil. In the left lower corner, an insulating bridge
is placed to access the inner side of the coil from the outside.
1) Magnetic Induction Sensor: Previous research has in-
troduced several possible forms of integrating the inductor
coil, e.g. by using high frequency litz [10] or as a printed
circuit board track on flexible material [9]. Here, the coil is
embroidered into the fabric using conductive thread (Elitex,
manufacturer: imbut GmbH, Greiz, Germany) as presented in
Fig. 3. The thread consists of polyamide, the conductivity is
achieved by means of a silver coating. The thread can not
be soldered, so the two ends are sawn to patent fasteners.
The sensor electronics are integrated on a small printed circuit
board which is contacted to the coil using the counterpart of
the patent fasteners. Thus, the electronics can be exchanged,
offering flexibility in development. The sensor electronics
comprise of the components of the Colpitts oscillator and an
additional logic stage for conditioning the signal to transistor-
transistor logic (TTL) levels. In addition, an optional frequency
divider stage to lower the frequency by a factor of up to
eight is available. The output signal is fed into a NI USB-
6210 converter card (National Instruments, Austin, Texas,
USA) configured as a counter system so the Colpitts oscillator
frequency can be assessed. The converter output (counter
value) is sampled at a rate of 1000 Hz.
Fig. 4. The optical sensor board. In the middle of the board, the photodiode
can be seen, which is surrounded by four LEDs.
2) Optical Sensor: Fig. 4 shows a picture of the optical
sensor board. In the center of the board, the photodiode sensor
is situated. In the four edges, IR LEDs (wavelength: 850
nm) are placed. IR light is used since transmission through
fabric layers is better for higher wavelengths. For simplicity
of design, the LEDs are powered with constant current and
not pulsed. The signal from the photodiode is amplified in a
transimpedance amplifier, filtered in two filter stages (lowpass,
highpass, realized in Sallen-Key topology) and fed into the
same NI USB-6210 converter card for digitalization at a
sampling frequency of 1000 Hz as was done for the magnetic
induction sensor.
C. Belt Integration
Fig. 5. Presentation of a section of the belt directed towards the driver.
Rivets are placed in the textile to create optical pathways. Behind the rivets,
the photodiode and four LEDs can be seen.
As presented before, the inductor coil of the MI sensor is
directly integrated into the textile cover and the associated
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electronics are connected to it using patent fasteners. The
optical sensor board is placed inside the textile cover so that
the photodiode and LEDs are directed towards the body of
the driver. Optical pathways for the LEDs and the photodiode
were created by cutting holes in the cover which are reinforced
by steel rivets as presented in Fig. 5. Since the rivets are made
from electrically conducting metal, epoxy resin was used for
electrical insulation.
D. Reference Measurement Systems
To assess the validity of the derived optical heart activity
and respiration signal, reference measurement systems are
required. For the heart rate, a commercial ECG measurement
system (Philips MP30, Philips, Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
with three adhesive electrodes is used. In the ECG, every heart
beat can be clearly seen as a peak that originates from the
contraction of the heart muscle. For the respiration rate, a
breath activity belt (SleepSense, Elgin, USA) is used which
is strapped around the thorax. The belt incorporates a piezo-
electric element, which, under mechanical stress, generates a
voltage. Therefore, due to the expansion of the thorax during
inspiration, a voltage can be measured. The output signals of
both reference systems are fed into the NI USB-6210 converter
for digitalization at a sampling rate of 1000 Hz.
E. Test Procedure
Fig. 6. Placement of the sensors on the driver.
Due to regulatory and safety concerns, the sensor belt
was tested in a laboratory environment and not in a real
world driving experiment. The experiment was performed in
a static environment, i.e. no driving simulator was used. A
common car seat was equipped with a safety belt to which
the textile cover was attached. The textile cover was moved on
the safety belt until the embroidered coil was approximately
on the sternum. Due to the design of the textile cover, the
optical sensor system then rested on the Musculus pectoralis
major, approximately above the heart. Fig. 6 shows the sensor
arrangement with respect to the vehicle driver. Sensor data was
recorded from the optical and MI sensor, alongside with sensor
data from the two reference systems. During the experiment,
the number of breaths taken was noted for validation purposes.
F. Signal Processing
Signal processing of all sensor signals was done in Matlab.
Since the magnetic induction sensor measures only respiration
and the optical heart rate sensor measures only heart activity,
no separation of the respiration and heart signal is required.
1) Magnetic Induction Sensor: The converter card de-
livered the current counter value at each sampling time.
Therefore, to calculate the instantaneous frequency between
sampling times, the signal from the converter card was dif-
ferentiated, i.e. consecutive counter values were subtracted.
Since the differentiated signal presented with good quality, no
further signal processing was necessary.
2) Optical Heart Rate Sensor: The signal from the optical
sensor was lowpass filtered to remove high frequency noise.
A FIR filter with an order of 12 and a cutoff frequency of 10
Hz was used.
3) Reference Measurements: The ECG signal already pre-
sented with sufficient signal quality so no postprocessing was
performed. The breath belt sensor signal showed a significant
level of high frequency noise. Therefore, a lowpass filter was
applied to the sensor data. A FIR filter with an order of 30
and a cutoff frequency of 1 Hz was used.
III. R ESULTS
A. Availability of Data
Fig. 7. Sample signals from the optical sensor (top) and the MI sensor
(bottom).
Fig. 7 shows sample signals from the MI sensor and the
optical sensor in a representative time interval. Since the op-
tical sensor signal presented with only small signal variations,
the mean value of the signal was subtracted to improve the
visibility of small temporal variations. For the MI sensor,
a good signal is available during the whole time interval.
Inspiration (local maxima) and exspiration (local minima) are
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clearly visible. The optical heart rate sensor presents with a
different picture: During expiration, a regular pattern can be
observed, while during inspiration, artifacts (spikes with larger
amplitudes and fast slew rate) occur in the signal.
B. Magnetic Induction Sensor and Respiration Reference
Fig. 8 presents a signal sample of 30 sec length from the
MI sensor along with the breath signal reference from the
piezoelectric belt. Both signal are from the same time period,
so a direct comparison is possible. The oscillator operates
at a frequency of 21.505 MHz (maximum exhale) to 21.869
MHz (maximum inhale). Hence, the frequency shift between
inhale and exhale is 364 kHz. In both signal, typical breathing
pattern can be observed. The number of breaths taken during
the experiment matches the observable patterns. With respect
to signal-to-noise ratio, the performance of the MI sensor was
even better than the reference sensor. Also, the peaks in the MI
sensor signal are clearer. In the reference sensor, no clear peak,
but a plateau can be observed. Thus, a respiration detection is
definitely possible by using the embroidered MI sensor.
Fig. 8. Sample signals from the safety belt integrated MI sensor (top) and
the reference sensor (bottom).
C. Optical Heart Rate Sensor and Reference ECG
Fig. 9 presents a sample signal of 4 sec length from the
optical sensor along with the reference ECG. Both signals
are from the same time period to enable a direct comparison.
The signals were recorded during expiration. The optical heart
rate sensor delivers a signal of typically between 0.326 and
0.335 V, so the signal difference between different heart beat
phases is rather small. In the ECG signal distinctive spikes
can be seen which originate in the electrical heart activity.
Thus, every spike is associated with one heart beat. In the
optical signal, local maxima coincide with the peaks in the
ECG. The local maxima are not as strong as the peaks in the
ECG, but still clearly visible. Hence, heart activity detection
using the optical sensor is feasabile during expiration. During
inspiration, artefacts occur in the signal, making heart rate
detection difficult.

Fig. 9. Sample signals from the safety belt integrated optical sensor (top)
and the reference ECG (bottom).
IV. C ONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
In this work, a sensor for driver state monitoring was
presented. The sensor is integrated onto a safety belt and
incorporates two different sensor concepts. An optical sensor is
used for the monitoring of heart activity, a magnetic induction
sensor is implemented for the monitoring of breathing activity.
The feasability of breath activity monitoring using a safety-
belt integrated magnetic induction system was successfully
demonstrated. During expiration as well as inspiration, sensor
data was available at high quality. Interestingly, the quality of
the magnetic induction sensor was better than the reference
sensor. The optical heart rate sensor system presented with
difficulties during inspiration. A closer examination of the
phenomenon showed that the sensor position moved during
inspiration, since the shoulders of the driver moved upwards
during inspiration. It might hence be advisable to reposition
the sensor to a position less affected by motion artifacts.
V. F UTURE WORK
In future work, the sensor integration should be improved.
Different positions for the optical heart rate sensor should
be evaluated to address the susceptibility to motion artifacts.
The textile cover should be replaced by an additional textile
layer in the belt which incorporates the sensor system. Special
care must be taken to comply with safety standards, i.e.
regarding the stability of the belt. An issue that needs to
be addressed is the compatibility of the sensor electronics
with the belt reversing device. On the electronics level, the
constant current operation of the LEDs should be replaced
by a pulsed operation. By that, higher light emission from
the LEDs resulting in a better SNR are possible without
violating thermal restrictions. Also, the findings from this work
should be confirmed on a larger number of test persons in
a clinical study. For that, an ethics application and approval
from the ethics boards is required. In the study, several
aspects should be investigated: Influence of different clothing
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materials, number of layers of clothing, climatic conditions
inside the car, driving conditions, vibrations, body movements.
Generally, as far as legally possible, the experiments should
be performed in public road transport to validate the sensor
system under realistic conditions which cannot be simulated
in a laboratory or simulator experiment. In particular, the
influence of e.g. vibrations and body movements on the signal
quality should be investigated. The results of the study should
also be statistically evaluated, e.g. regarding the availability
and the error rates of the sensor information.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Julia
Knauel for assisting in the textile integration of the sensor
system.
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