Development of an In-Ear Photoplethysmography Wearable System

In this paper, a wearable electronic platform for in-ear photoplethysmography is presented. The system was specifically designed with a miniaturized form factor in order to enable the potential monitoring of athletes during physical activity, as well professionals wearing earbuds or headphones during their normal duties. Measurements have been collected to address the main factors affecting the signal quality: as a result, the fine tuning of the configuration parameters allowed the extension of the battery lifetime of the system to over 3 days of continuous monitoring. Moreover, an investigation of the best body measurement location has been carried out.