Pulse Oximetry Based on Quadrature Multiplexing of the Amplitude Modulated Photoplethysmographic Signals

Abstract

In this research, a pulse oximeter based on quadrature multiplexing of AM-PPG signals is proposed. The oximeter is operated by a microcontroller and employs a simple amplitude modulation technique to mitigate noise interference during SpO2 measurement. The two AM-PPG signals (RED and IR) are quadrature multiplexed using carrier signals with equal frequencies but a 90-degree phase difference. The study focused on noise interference caused by light intensity and hand movement. The experiment was conducted under three different levels of light intensity: 200 Lux, 950 Lux, and 2200 Lux. For each light intensity level, the SpO2 level was measured under three scenarios: hand still, shadow movement over the hand, and hand shaking. A comparison between the proposed technique and the conventional method reveals that the proposed technique offers a superior performance. The relative error of the measured SpO2 level using the proposed technique was less than 3.1% overall. Based on the study, the proposed technique is less affected by noise interference caused by light intensity and hand movement compared to the conventional method. In addition, the proposed technique has an advantage over contemporary methods in terms of computational complexity. Consequently, the proposed technique can be applied to wearable devices that include SpO2 measurement functionality.