PulseSensor Research (H1)

H1 hybrid · PPG science and experiments

The science under the sensor

Learn what is hiding inside a pulse waveform—from heartbeat timing to respiration-related variations—and how to explore it carefully with PulseSensor.

This page connects Dr. D. John Doyle’s annotated 47-paper bibliography to practical, reproducible experiments. Start with the signal, choose a build path, or go straight to the papers.

What this page is—and is notThis is a research and learning guide. It describes candidate signals, methods, and experiments from the literature. It does not claim that the current PulseSensor directly measures respiration, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, or any medical condition.

PPG in 60 seconds

PulseSensor is a reflectance photoplethysmograph (PPG). It turns small changes in reflected green light into an analog waveform that your development board can sample.

IlluminateA green LED shines into fingertip or earlobe tissue.
DetectBlood-volume changes modulate the reflected light.
ObserveThe electronics produce a continuously varying analog PPG waveform.
MeasureQualified pulse timing produces beat events, IBI, and BPM.
ExploreRaw waveforms and beat intervals support careful signal-processing experiments.

A useful precision: variability calculated from PPG pulse-to-pulse intervals is most accurately called pulse-rate variability. It is related to ECG-derived heart-rate variability, but the two are not identical—especially during motion or changing vascular conditions.

What the current PulseSensor can—and cannot—do

Available now

  • One green reflectance PPG channel per sensor
  • Raw analog waveform for your board’s ADC
  • PulseSensor Playground beat, IBI, BPM, amplitude, and raw-sample access
  • 500 Hz library timing and support for multiple PulseSensor instances
  • Open-source examples for one sensor, multiple sensors, WebSerial, and timing experiments

Not a product claim

  • Not a pulse oximeter and not an SpO₂ sensor
  • Not a validated respiration-rate monitor
  • Not a blood-pressure monitor
  • Not medical equipment or a safety-critical monitor
  • Research papers made with clinical hardware do not automatically validate a maker build

Inspect the open-source PulseSensor Playground library ↗

Choose an experiment

Start with the fewest channels that can answer your question. Every additional sensor adds useful comparisons—and new synchronization, placement, pressure, and motion variables.

1

One sensor

  • Raw waveform and morphology
  • Beat events, IBI, BPM, and pulse-rate variability
  • Explore RIAV, RIIV, and RIFV as candidate respiration-related variations
  • Test placement, pressure, light, and motion
Treat any respiration result as an experimental estimate requiring signal-quality checks and an independent reference.
2

Two sensors

  • Compare finger, ear, left/right, or proximal/distal sites
  • Compare amplitude, shape, signal quality, and respiratory content
  • Measure synchronized relative pulse-arrival delay
  • Separate shared from site-specific changes cautiously
Two peripheral PPG channels do not provide the ECG R-wave used in many conventional pulse-arrival measurements. Do not present timing changes as blood pressure.
3+

Fusion and controls

  • Keep a stable PPG reference while changing placement or pressure
  • Add an accelerometer or respiratory reference channel
  • Compare quality-weighted candidate estimators
  • Build carefully documented spatial experiments
More channels help only when they share a reliable clock and their placement, wavelength, pressure, and metadata are preserved.

A reproducible PPG workflow

1 · Start with a clean waveformVerify wiring, stable contact, light shielding, and a repeating pulse before calculating anything.
2 · Save raw samplesPreserve exact timestamps and every channel. What you discard during capture cannot be recovered.
3 · Record the experimentLog board, ADC, sample rate, site, side, attachment, pressure, posture, breathing instruction, light, and motion.
4 · Gate on signal qualityA window good enough for BPM may still be too noisy for small respiratory variations.
5 · Compare methodsInspect RIAV, RIIV, and RIFV in parallel instead of trusting one number automatically.
6 · Validate and report failureCompare with an independent reference when making a quantitative claim, and keep rejected windows visible in the record.

Build now, then extend the library

Research directions suggested by the bibliography

  • A research-ready raw waveform recorder with metadata
  • A transparent RIAV/RIIV/RIFV starter example
  • A signal-quality gate before reporting estimates
  • Optional accelerometer and reference-channel synchronization
  • Modern pulse-rate variability examples with clear terminology

Dr. Doyle’s advanced PPG reading guide

An annotated bibliography, with emphasis on extracting respiration from the PPG signal

D. John Doyle, MD PhD DPhil
Professor Emeritus (Anesthesiology), Cleveland Clinic / Case Western Reserve University
Revised 8 July 2026 · 47 entries
This bibliography, prepared with AI-assistance, is intended for a practical research program involving Arduino/ESP32-style multi-channel PPG acquisition, respiratory-rate extraction, respiratory-waveform derivation, signal-quality assessment, artifact rejection, and validation against respiratory reference signals. The emphasis is on PubMed-indexed and PubMed Central/open-access material where possible, while retaining several older or paywalled papers that are scientifically central.

The short version

The literature treats the PPG as a cardiovascular carrier signal modulated by respiration. Respiratory information appears as respiratory-induced amplitude variation (RIAV), intensity or baseline variation (RIIV), frequency variation through respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RIFV), pulse-width and morphology changes, slow baseline shifts, and site-dependent venous/arterial interactions.

The practical consequence for anyone building on an Arduino or ESP32: store raw waveforms and metadata, and support several parallel respiratory channels rather than one estimator. Pick a single method too early and you will spend months tuning a number that a second channel would have told you not to trust.

Where to start

Forty-seven papers is a lot. In this order, each one makes the next easier.

  1. Charlton et al. 2018Organizing framework for the entire field of ECG/PPG breathing-rate estimation.
  2. Pimentel et al. 2017Robust pulse-oximeter RR estimation with quality assessment and fusion.
  3. Karlen et al. 2013Classic multiparameter RIAV/RIIV/RIFV estimator.
  4. Dehkordi et al. 2018Instantaneous RR from multiple respiratory-induced PPG variations.
  5. Hartmann et al. 2019Measurement-site effects; directly informs sensor placement.
  6. Elgendi 2016; Orphanidou 2015; Jarchi et al. 2019Signal quality and motion contamination.
  7. Baker et al. 2021; Iqbal et al. 2022; Chin et al. 2024Modern algorithmic and machine-learning extensions.
  8. Charlton et al. 2022 and 2023Roadmap-level guidance for open wearable PPG systems.

Browse the 47-paper bibliography

Citations and commentary are the author's. The colour marks how far you can get without a library card.

Open access — full text in PMC or from an OA publisher Free to read — author manuscript or institutional PDF Abstract only — full text not confirmed
47 of 47

Foundations

8

Physiology, instrumentation, error sources, and where the wearable field is headed.

1

Allen J. Photoplethysmography and its application in clinical physiological measurement. Physiological Measurement. 2007;28(3):R1-R39. doi:10.1088/0967-3334/28/3/R01. PMID:17322588.

A classic entry point for PPG physiology and instrumentation. It remains useful because respiratory extraction depends on understanding the arterial, venous, autonomic, optical-coupling, and site-related sources of waveform variation.

Abstract onlyPubMed
2

Castaneda D, Esparza A, Ghamari M, Soltanpur C, Nazeran H. A review on wearable photoplethysmography sensors and their potential future applications in health care. International Journal of Biosensors & Bioelectronics. 2018;4(4):195-202. doi:10.15406/ijbsbe.2018.04.00125.

Broad wearable-PPG review emphasizing sensor configurations, motion artifact, measurement site, and applications. Useful for choosing between finger, ear, forehead, wrist, and reflectance/transmission modes.

Open accessPMC
3

Tamura T. Current progress of photoplethysmography and SpO2 for health monitoring. Biomedical Engineering Letters. 2019;9(1):21-36. doi:10.1007/s13534-019-00097-w. PMID:30956885.

Concise review of PPG and pulse-oximetry technology, including motion artifacts and health-monitoring applications. A useful bridge between clinical pulse oximetry and consumer/wearable PPG.

Open accessPMC
4

Fine J, Branan KL, Rodriguez AJ, Boonya-ananta T, Ajmal, Ramella-Roman JC, McShane MJ, Cote GL. Sources of Inaccuracy in Photoplethysmography for Continuous Cardiovascular Monitoring. Biosensors (Basel). 2021;11(4):126. doi:10.3390/bios11040126. PMID:33923469.

Highly relevant to experimental design. It catalogs sources of error including skin tone, motion, contact pressure, ambient light, sensor position, and physiology; all of these can corrupt respiratory-induced modulation.

Open accessPMC
5

Mejia-Mejia E, Budidha K, Abay TY, May JM, Kyriacou PA. Photoplethysmography Signal Processing and Synthesis. In: Kyriacou PA, Allen J, editors. Photoplethysmography: Technology, Signal Analysis and Applications. Academic Press; 2022.

Practical technical chapter on PPG preprocessing, time-domain analysis, frequency-domain analysis, machine learning, and synthetic signal generation. Valuable for moving from pulse counting to respiratory modulation extraction and simulator-driven testing.

Free to readAuthor PDF
6

Park J, Seok HS, Kim SS, Shin H. Photoplethysmogram Analysis and Applications: An Integrative Review. Frontiers in Physiology. 2022;12:808451. doi:10.3389/fphys.2021.808451. PMID:35222266.

Broad modern review of PPG analysis, physiology, and applications. It helps place respiratory extraction alongside HRV, blood pressure estimation, vascular assessment, autonomic analysis, and wearable sensing.

Open accessPMC
7

Charlton PH, Kyriacou PA, Mant J, Marozas V, Chowienczyk P, Alastruey J. Wearable Photoplethysmography for Cardiovascular Monitoring. Proceedings of the IEEE. 2022;110(3):355-381. doi:10.1109/JPROC.2022.3149785. PMID:35356509.

High-value review for wearable and low-cost PPG systems. Covers sensor design, preprocessing, signal quality, datasets, and clinical use; essential background for respiratory algorithms in wearable conditions.

Open accessPMC
8

Charlton PH, et al. The 2023 wearable photoplethysmography roadmap. Physiological Measurement. 2023;44(11):111001. doi:10.1088/1361-6579/acead2. PMID:37494945.

Strategic roadmap for wearable PPG research: sensor design, signal processing, clinical translation, datasets, bias, and open science. Strong reference for building an open Arduino/ESP32 PPG platform.

Open accessPMC

Respiratory modulation

7

Why breathing shows up in a heartbeat signal at all.

9

Meredith DJ, Clifton D, Charlton PH, Brooks J, Pugh CW, Tarassenko L. Photoplethysmographic derivation of respiratory rate: a review of relevant physiology. Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology. 2012;36(1):1-7. doi:10.3109/03091902.2011.638965. PMID:22185462.

Foundational physiological review explaining how breathing modulates PPG through venous return, intrathoracic pressure, autonomic effects, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Justifies parallel extraction of RIIV, RIAV, and RIFV.

Free to readAuthor PDF
10

Nilsson LM. Respiration signals from photoplethysmography. Anesthesia & Analgesia. 2013;117(4):859-865. doi:10.1213/ANE.0b013e31828098b2. PMID:23449854.

Clinically oriented review from anesthesia and monitoring. Particularly relevant to OR and procedural settings where pulse oximetry is already present and respiration monitoring may be desirable without extra sensors.

Abstract onlyPubMed
11

Li J, Jin J, Chen X, Sun W, Guo P. Comparison of respiratory-induced variations in photoplethysmographic signals. Physiological Measurement. 2010;31(3):415-425. doi:10.1088/0967-3334/31/3/009. PMID:20147775.

Important comparison of respiratory-induced PPG variations. Supports storing raw waveform data so that multiple modulation families can be compared offline rather than relying on one respiratory surrogate.

Abstract onlyPubMed
12

Liu H, et al. Comparison of different modulations of photoplethysmography in extracting respiratory rate: from a physiological perspective. Physiological Measurement. 2020;41(9):094001. doi:10.1088/1361-6579/abaaf0. PMID:32731213.

Corrected title. Useful because it frames respiratory extraction in terms of physiological mechanisms rather than numerical performance alone. It reminds developers that amplitude, baseline, and frequency modulation may fail under different conditions.

Abstract onlyPubMed
13

Hartmann V, Liu H, Chen F, Qiu Q, Hughes S, Zheng D. Toward Accurate Extraction of Respiratory Frequency From the Photoplethysmogram: Effect of Measurement Site. Frontiers in Physiology. 2019;10:732. doi:10.3389/fphys.2019.00732. PMID:31316390.

Directly relevant to hardware design. Shows that PPG-derived respiratory frequency depends on measurement site and breathing pattern; strongly supports testing multiple sensor locations or optical channels.

Open accessPMC
14

Addison PS. Respiratory modulations in the photoplethysmogram (DPOP) as a measure of respiratory effort. Journal of Clinical Monitoring and Computing. 2016;30(5):595-602. doi:10.1007/s10877-015-9763-y. PMID:26377021.

Useful for moving beyond respiratory rate toward respiratory effort. DPOP quantifies the strength of respiratory modulation in the pleth waveform; a platform should consider modulation depth as well as rate.

Open accessPMC
15

Addison PS. Respiratory effort from the photoplethysmogram. Medical Engineering & Physics. 2017;41:9-18. doi:10.1016/j.medengphy.2016.12.010. PMID:28126420.

Explores candidate PPG-derived parameters for respiratory effort, including amplitude, baseline, frequency, and pulse-transit-related changes. Suggests richer endpoints than respiratory rate alone.

Free to readPubMed

Algorithms

16

Filtering, time-frequency analysis, synchrosqueezing, probabilistic fusion.

16

Nakajima K, Tamura T, Miike H. Monitoring of heart and respiratory rates by photoplethysmography using a digital filtering technique. Medical Engineering & Physics. 1996;18(5):365-372. doi:10.1016/1350-4533(95)00066-6. PMID:8762834.

Historically important early demonstration that both heart and respiratory rates can be extracted from PPG with digital filtering. Dated technologically, but conceptually useful as a simple baseline.

Abstract onlyPubMed
17

Chon KH, Dash S, Ju K. Estimation of respiratory rate from photoplethysmogram data using time-frequency spectral estimation. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 2009;56(8):2054-2063. doi:10.1109/TBME.2009.2019766. PMID:19369147.

Key paper in the transition from simple filtering to time-frequency spectral estimation. Important for nonstationary breathing; a good offline benchmark against cheaper embedded algorithms.

Free to readPubMed
18

Karlen W, Raman S, Ansermino JM, Dumont GA. Multiparameter respiratory rate estimation from the photoplethysmogram. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 2013;60(7):1946-1953. doi:10.1109/TBME.2013.2246160. PMID:23399950.

Central paper for PPG-derived respiratory rate. It extracts respiratory-induced frequency, intensity, and amplitude variations and combines information across them; highly relevant to a multi-channel platform.

Abstract onlyPubMed
19

Charlton PH, Bonnici T, Tarassenko L, Clifton DA, Beale R, Watkinson PJ. An assessment of algorithms to estimate respiratory rate from the electrocardiogram and photoplethysmogram. Physiological Measurement. 2016;37(4):610-626. doi:10.1088/0967-3334/37/4/610. PMID:27027672.

Methodological cornerstone comparing algorithms and emphasizing validation, data quality, and common evaluation methods. Important antidote to overfitting algorithms to one clean dataset.

Open accessPMC
20

Pimentel MAF, Johnson AEW, Charlton PH, Birrenkott D, Watkinson PJ, Tarassenko L, Clifton DA. Toward a Robust Estimation of Respiratory Rate From Pulse Oximeters. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 2017;64(8):1914-1923. doi:10.1109/TBME.2016.2613124. PMID:28113393.

Must-read for robust RR estimation from pulse oximetry. Uses respiratory-induced variations, quality assessment, and probabilistic fusion; one of the best algorithmic templates for a practical platform.

Open accessPMC
21

Charlton PH, Birrenkott DA, Bonnici T, Pimentel MAF, Johnson AEW, Alastruey J, Tarassenko L, Watkinson PJ, Beale R, Clifton DA. Breathing Rate Estimation From the Electrocardiogram and Photoplethysmogram: A Review. IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering. 2018;11:2-20. doi:10.1109/RBME.2017.2763681. PMID:29990026.

The best single review for breathing-rate estimation from ECG and PPG. Lays out preprocessing, respiratory-signal extraction, rate estimation, fusion, and quality assessment.

Open accessPMC
22

Garde A, Karlen W, Ansermino JM, Dumont GA. Estimating respiratory and heart rates from the correntropy spectral density of the photoplethysmogram. PLOS ONE. 2014;9(1):e86427. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0086427. PMID:24466088.

Corrected author list: Dehkordi was removed. Uses correntropy spectral density to improve robustness to noise and non-Gaussian artifacts; useful when simple FFT/Welch methods are unreliable.

Open accessPMC
23

Park C, Lee B, Lee J. Real-time estimation of respiratory rate from a photoplethysmogram using an adaptive lattice notch filter. BioMedical Engineering OnLine. 2014;13:170. doi:10.1186/1475-925X-13-170. PMID:25518918.

Corrected title and venue. Valuable for real-time feasibility: algorithms that work in MATLAB may be too memory- or CPU-intensive for an embedded device.

Open accessPMC
24

Zhang X, Ding Q. Respiratory rate monitoring from the photoplethysmogram via sparse signal reconstruction. Physiological Measurement. 2016;37(7):1105-1119. doi:10.1088/0967-3334/37/7/1105. PMID:27319303.

Corrected full citation. Treats respiration as a sparse spectral component embedded in a stronger cardiac carrier and noise; likely more useful as an offline benchmark than a first Arduino algorithm.

Abstract onlyPubMed
25

Dehkordi P, Garde A, Karlen W, Ansermino JM, Dumont GA. Estimating instantaneous respiratory rate from the photoplethysmogram. Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. 2015;2015:6150-6153. doi:10.1109/EMBC.2015.7319796. PMID:26737696.

Corrected conference citation. Introduces a synchrosqueezing-transform direction for instantaneous respiratory-rate extraction; likely too heavy for first-pass embedded use but a valuable offline standard.

Abstract onlyPubMed
26

Dehkordi P, Garde A, Karlen W, Wensley D, Ansermino JM, Dumont GA. Extracting Instantaneous Respiratory Rate From Multiple Photoplethysmogram Respiratory-Induced Variations. Frontiers in Physiology. 2018;9:948. doi:10.3389/fphys.2018.00948. PMID:30131724.

Central open-access paper for advanced respiratory extraction. Extracts RIIV, RIAV, and RIFV, estimates instantaneous RR from each, and fuses estimates.

Open accessPMC
27

Cicone A, Wu HT. How nonlinear-type time-frequency analysis can help in sensing instantaneous heart rate and instantaneous respiratory rate from photoplethysmography in a reliable way. Frontiers in Physiology. 2017;8:701. doi:10.3389/fphys.2017.00701. PMID:29018395.

Mathematically advanced nonlinear time-frequency analysis for instantaneous heart and respiratory rates. Not a first embedded method, but useful as a high-end reference standard.

Open accessPMC
28

Khreis S, Ge D, Rahman HA, Carrault G. Breathing Rate Estimation Using Kalman Smoother With Electrocardiogram and Photoplethysmogram. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 2020;67(3):893-904. doi:10.1109/TBME.2019.2923448. PMID:31217092.

Shows the value of temporal tracking/smoothing for breath-rate estimates. A Kalman or Bayesian smoother is a natural second-stage module after raw estimator extraction.

Abstract onlyPubMed
29

Iqbal T, Elahi A, Ganly S, Wijns W, Shahzad A. Photoplethysmography-Based Respiratory Rate Estimation Algorithm for Health Monitoring Applications. Journal of Medical and Biological Engineering. 2022;42(2):242-252. doi:10.1007/s40846-022-00700-z. PMID:35535218.

Corrected full citation. Practical algorithm using selective windowing, preprocessing, modified Welch filtering, and postprocessing. A useful baseline because it is less exotic than synchrosqueezing but more robust than simple filtering.

Open accessPMC
30

Kim H, Lee HJ, Kim JS, Whang MC. Fast and Robust Real-Time Estimation of Respiratory Rate from Photoplethysmography. Sensors (Basel). 2016;16(9):1494. doi:10.3390/s16091494. PMID:27649195.

Added as a useful correction/augmentation. Proposes fast real-time RR estimation from PPG, relevant to low-resource embedded implementations and comparison with Park-style adaptive filtering.

Open accessPMC
31

Pirhonen M, Peltokangas M, Vehkaoja A. Acquiring Respiration Rate from Photoplethysmographic Signal by Recursive Bayesian Tracking of Intrinsic Modes in Time-Frequency Spectra. Sensors (Basel). 2018;18(6):1693. doi:10.3390/s18061693. PMID:29843380.

Useful open-access time-frequency/Bayesian tracking paper. It broadens the algorithmic menu beyond RIAV/RIIV/RIFV and standard spectral peaks.

Open accessPMC

Quality and robustness

16

Machine learning, signal-quality indices, and staying honest with noisy data.

32

Baker S, Xiang W, Atkinson I. Determining respiratory rate from photoplethysmogram and electrocardiogram signals using respiratory quality indices and neural networks. PLOS ONE. 2021;16(4):e0249843. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0249843. PMID:33891653.

Strong bridge between classical modulation extraction and neural networks. Emphasizes respiratory signal quality quantification before feeding information into models.

Open accessPMC
33

Lei R, Chen C, Zhou C, Zhang Y, Yang Z, Wang X. Estimation of Heart Rate and Respiratory Rate from PPG Signal Based on Complementary Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise and Independent Component Analysis. Sensors (Basel). 2020;20(11):3237. doi:10.3390/s20113237. PMID:32517009.

Uses decomposition and source-separation style processing to recover heart and respiratory rates. Useful for comparing EMD/ICA approaches with simpler bandpass methods.

Open accessPMC
34

Chowdhury MH, Shuzan MNI, Chowdhury MEH, Reaz MBI, Mahmud S, Al Emadi N, et al. Lightweight End-to-End Deep Learning Solution for Estimating the Respiration Rate from Photoplethysmogram Signal. Bioengineering (Basel). 2022;9(10):558. doi:10.3390/bioengineering9100558.

Corrected title and venue. Useful as a benchmark for direct RR estimation from raw/processed PPG, even if a full deep model is not the first target for Arduino deployment.

Open accessPMC
35

Hwang CS, et al. Evaluation of the Photoplethysmogram-Based Deep Learning Model for Respiratory Rate Estimation. Sensors (Basel). 2023;23(20):8377. doi:10.3390/s23208377. PMID:37892952.

Corrected to a specific Sensors article. Evaluates deep learning models for continuous RR estimation from PPG and helps identify what labeled respiratory reference signal would be needed for training or validation.

Open accessPMC
36

Shuzan MNI, Chowdhury MH, Chowdhury MEH, Murugappan M, Bhuiyan EH, Ayari MA, Khandakar A. Machine Learning-Based Respiration Rate and Blood Oxygen Saturation Estimation Using Photoplethysmogram Signals. Bioengineering (Basel). 2023;10(2):167. doi:10.3390/bioengineering10020167. PMID:36829661.

Machine-learning approach to estimating both RR and SpO2-related information from PPG. Suggests future multi-output models that estimate RR, signal quality, SpO2 surrogates, and artifact flags.

Open accessPMC
37

Chin WJ, Kwan BH, Lim WY, Tee YK, Darmaraju S, Liu H, Goh CH. A novel respiratory rate estimation algorithm from photoplethysmogram using deep learning model. Diagnostics (Basel). 2024;14(3):284. doi:10.3390/diagnostics14030284. PMID:38337800.

Corrected title. Recent open-access paper explicitly focused on RR from PPG; useful contemporary comparator and bridge to older RIAV/RIIV/RIFV methods.

Open accessPMC
38

Yang G, Kang Y, Charlton PH, Kyriacou PA, Kim KK, Li L, Park C. Energy-Efficient PPG-Based Respiratory Rate Estimation Using Spiking Neural Networks. Sensors (Basel). 2024;24(12):3980. doi:10.3390/s24123980. PMID:38931569.

Relevant for low-power and embedded ambitions. Spiking neural networks may eventually map well to efficient hardware, even if not immediately Arduino-friendly.

Open accessPMC
39

Arguello-Prada EJ, et al. The use of successive systolic differences in photoplethysmography for respiratory rate estimation. Heliyon. 2024;10(2):e24576. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e24576.

Introduces respiratory-induced variations in successive systolic differences as an alternative to classic amplitude, intensity, and frequency families; valuable for beat-to-beat morphology-oriented experiments.

Open accessPMC
40

Ponsiglione AM, et al. Comparison of Techniques for Respiratory Rate Extraction from ECG and PPG Signals. Sensors (Basel). 2025;25(16):5136. doi:10.3390/s25165136. PMID:40871998.

Recent comparative paper evaluating extraction from ECG and PPG. Useful for sober benchmarking and for recognizing conditions where PPG-derived respiration may underperform ECG-derived features.

Open accessPMC
41

Jarchi D, Charlton PH, Pimentel MAF, Casson AJ, Tarassenko L, Clifton DA. Estimation of Respiratory Rate from Motion Contaminated Photoplethysmography Signals Incorporating Accelerometry. Healthcare Technology Letters. 2019;6(1):19-24. doi:10.1049/htl.2018.5019.

Corrected full title. Motion-contaminated PPG is the normal wearable case; supports adding accelerometers and explicit motion labels to the platform.

Open accessPMC
42

Lee J, Kim M, Park HK, Kim IY. Motion Artifact Reduction in Wearable Photoplethysmography Based on Multi-Channel Sensors with Multiple Wavelengths. Sensors (Basel). 2020;20(5):1493. doi:10.3390/s20051493.

Directly relevant to hardware. Supports multi-channel and multi-wavelength PPG sensors for artifact reduction; useful for separating respiratory physiology from motion and contact artifacts.

Open accessPMC
43

Elgendi M. Optimal Signal Quality Index for Photoplethysmogram Signals. Bioengineering (Basel). 2016;3(4):21. doi:10.3390/bioengineering3040021. PMID:28952542.

Key open paper on PPG signal-quality indices. Respiratory extraction is only as reliable as the source waveform; supports quality gating before RR estimation.

Open accessPMC
44

Sabeti E, Reamaroon N, Mathis J, et al. Signal quality measure for pulsatile physiological signals using morphological features: Applications in reliability measure for pulse oximetry. Informatics in Medicine Unlocked. 2019;16:100222. doi:10.1016/j.imu.2019.100222. PMID:32864419.

Corrected title and application phrase. Proposes morphological features for signal quality and reliability, which can support exclusion/down-weighting of unreliable PPG windows.

Open accessPMC
45

Orphanidou C, Bonnici T, Charlton P, Clifton D, Vallance D, Tarassenko L. Signal-quality indices for the electrocardiogram and photoplethysmogram: derivation and applications to wireless monitoring. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. 2015;19(3):832-838. doi:10.1109/JBHI.2014.2338351. PMID:25069129.

Highly cited SQI paper in wearable monitoring. Reinforces that signal quality is task-specific: a segment may be adequate for heart rate but not for respiratory information.

Abstract onlyPubMed
46

van Gastel M, Stuijk S, de Haan G. Robust respiration detection from remote photoplethysmography. Biomedical Optics Express. 2016;7(12):4941-4957. doi:10.1364/BOE.7.004941. PMID:28018717.

Remote/camera-based PPG paper relevant because it extracts respiration from color/intensity variations and addresses motion robustness. Broadens the project from contact PPG to optical/camera respiratory sensing.

Open accessPMC
47

Zhang Y, Song S, Vullings R, Biswas D, Simões-Capela N, Van Helleputte N, Van Hoof C, Groenendaal W. Motion Artifact Reduction for Wrist-Worn Photoplethysmograph Sensors Based on Different Wavelengths. Sensors (Basel). 2019;19(3):673. doi:10.3390/s19030673. PMID:30764575.

Useful adjunct for multi-wavelength hardware design. Although focused mainly on heart-rate recovery, the motion-removal logic matters for any respiratory estimator using wearable PPG.

Open accessLink


Keep reading, building, and questioning

The bibliography is a map, not a product specification. The most useful next step is a small experiment with raw data, explicit metadata, a signal-quality check, and a result another person can reproduce or challenge.

Annotated bibliography compiled by D. John Doyle for World Famous Electronics. Page assembled with AI assistance for creative, educational, and experimental use. PulseSensor is not a medical device and is not for diagnosis, treatment, patient monitoring, emergency use, or safety-critical use.