University of Houston

The human body thermoregulation is directly affected by the peripheral vascular function. Several important physiological variables can be computed through careful analysis of dynamic thermal imagery of the skin. In this thesis we outline our methodology for computing physiological variables in a contact free, passive, and sustainable manner. First, we introduce a novel bio-heat modeling method to simulate and better understand the bio-heat transfer procedure.  Second, we propose a novel method to automatically localize and track the blood vessel, and to recover the cardiovascular pulse.

Our work opens the way for many unique applications in the medical field. We are expecting that the passive, contact-free, and sustainable monitoring of physiology will have strong impact on polygraph testing, sleep studies, sports training, and chronic disease diagnosis

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