Wearable Multisensor Ring-Shaped Probe for Assessing Stress and Blood Oxygenation: Design and Preliminary Measurements

The increasing interest in innovative solutions for health and physiological monitoring has recently fostered the development of smaller biomedical devices. These devices are capable of recording an increasingly large number of biosignals simultaneously, while maximizing the user’s comfort. In this study, we have designed and realized a novel wearable multisensor ring-shaped probe that enables synchronous, real-time acquisition of photoplethysmographic (PPG) and galvanic skin response (GSR) signals. The device integrates both the PPG and GSR sensors onto a single probe that can be easily placed on the finger, thereby minimizing the device footprint and overall size. The system enables the extraction of various physiological indices, including heart rate (HR) and its variability, oxygen saturation (SpO(2)), and GSR levels, as well as their dynamic changes over time, to facilitate the detection of different physiological states, e.g., rest and stress. After a preliminary SpO(2) calibration procedure, measurements have been carried out in laboratory on healthy subjects to demonstrate the feasibility of using our system to detect rapid changes in HR, skin conductance, and SpO(2) across various physiological conditions (i.e., rest, sudden stress-like situation and breath holding). The early findings encourage the use of the device in daily-life conditions for real-time monitoring of different physiological states.