Optical fiber sensors for heart rate monitoring: A review of mechanisms and applications

As an important part of the medical health monitoring field, heart rate (HR) monitoring has become an important application field of sensing technology in recent years. Due to the flexibility, chemical inertness, and anti-electromagnetic interference, optical fiber sensor (OFS) is widely concerned and studied in the field of HR monitoring. This paper summarizes the development of recent fiber-optic HR monitoring technology, introduces the sensing principles and applications of OFS for HR monitoring, which can be divided into intensity-based, interference-based, and FBG-based. For intensity modulation, bending and polishing methods are discussed. The main types of interference-based OFS are summarized and for FBG, packaging technology and materials are mainly introduced. Finally, the discussion and conclusions are summarized.