Blood pressure manometer using a twin Bragg grating Fabry-Perot interferometer

摘要

We propose the use of optical fiber Bragg gratings in a non-invasive blood pressure waveform monitor. Bragg gratings can be written in a Fabry-Perot interferometric configuration to yield a method of strain measurement that has both a high resolution and a wide unambiguous range. This fiber Bragg grating Fabry-Perot interferometer (FBGI) can be used as a sensor to detect strain resulting from blood pressure applied to the walls of an artery situated near the patient's skin. Strain measurements taken on the skin surface, typically over the radial artery at the wrist, are encoded as phase shifts of the FBGI signal. These phase shifts may be obtained by the analytic representation of the interferometer signal in the wavelength domain or by Fourier analysis in the frequency domain. For the proof of concept a realistic physical model was constructed to simulate pressure conditions at the actual sensor location. The operation of the device is demonstrated by measurements of pressure-pulse waveforms obtained in real-time. This sensor was also successfully tested on human patients, and these results are also presented. Since it yields continuous readings of blood pressure non-invasively, further application of the optical manometer may yield an alternative to conventional sphygmomanometry.