A new laser-assisted camera system can detect your heart rate from across a room by 'seeing' microscopic vibrations in your skin.
March 31, 2026
Original Paper
EMPD: An Event-based Multimodal Physiological Dataset for Remote Pulse Wave Detection
arXiv · 2603.26699
The Takeaway
Unlike standard cameras that struggle with movement, this system uses 'neuromorphic' sensors that mimic the human eye to track pulses with microsecond precision. It can monitor vital signs without any physical contact, even if the person is moving, by modulating tiny skin vibrations with a laser.
From the abstract
Remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) based on traditional frame-based cameras often struggles with motion artifacts and limited temporal resolution. To address these limitations, we introduce EMPD (Event-based Multimodal Physiological Dataset), the first benchmark dataset specifically designed for non-contact physiological sensing via event cameras. The dataset leverages a laser-assisted acquisition system where a high-coherence laser modulates subtle skin vibrations from the radial artery into si