Objectives

Sleep apnea is a respiratory disorder during a patient sleeping. We propose a novel contactless method to monitor airflow using thermal data. A patient exhales the air of higher temperature than the ambient air, and inhales the air of lower temperature than the anterior nares. These varied thermal data are studied in an agreement with the traditional polysomnography. A further accuracy measurement method promises to replace the traditional with a new unobtrusive method in sleep study.

Comparisions

Case 1: The thermal imaging and ground truth methods have good chance agreement in computing the breathing signal

Case 2: When the thermistor falls off due to an abrupt subject motion, the signal is lost. By contrast, the imaging method keeps going strong