The NeoWatch project

Around 15 million premature babies are born each year worldwide. In Germany alone, the rate is 9.0%, which equated to 215,634 premature babies in 2008. Babies are considered to be premature if born before the 37th week of pregnancy and often weigh less than 1500 g. These children need very intensive care. Therefore, until they can maintain their own body temperature, they are cared for in an incubator in a neonatal intensive care unit. Caring for premature babies is difficult, as it requires the babies to be connected to various machines and devices. These often present the nursing staff with great challenges, as the skin of the premature babies is very fine and sensitive.

This is where the research project NeoWatch comes in. Since September 2018, work has been under way to develop a system that can monitor infant vital functions, such as body temperature, heart, and respiration, without electrodes or cables. Through collaboration with the companies InnoSent and Corscience as well as Erlangen Children’s Hospital, Nuremberg Tech aims to make this possible by means of sensors and cameras, which will enable contactless examination, observation, and evaluation of the data.

Sensor systems

To resolve this problem, the idea is to install a sensor box with different cameras and sensors into the incubator. The appeal of this is the ability to cleverly combine the advantages of the various sensors and cameras. This should make it possible to detect heart rate, respiratory rate, and body temperature automatically and without any physical contact. The aim is to achieve a level of robustness at least as high as that of the current monitoring.

Algorithmics

Achieving robust, accurate, contactless, and automatic detection of vital signs requires the development of complex algorithms. These can be broken down into image processing, signal processing, and sensor fusion algorithms.

Results

Initial investigations on a baby simulator have shown that a structured light camera can be used to determine the respiration rate automatically and without any physical contact. The findings are set to be verified in a feasibility study in the Neonatology Ward of the Children’s Hospital of the University Hospital Erlangen.

Publications

Johanna Gleichauf, Christine Niebler and Alexander Koelpin. “Automatic non-contact monitoring of the respiratory rate of neonates using a structured light camera.” In: 42nd Annual International Conferences of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC). 2020