The measurement of vital signs is a risk-free, inexpensive, and reproducible clinical practice that enables identification of physiological deterioration of patients before an adverse event occurs. However, studies show that manual clinical measurements of respiratory rate are intermittent, biased, and inaccurate. Therefore, a contactless planar capacitive sensor was developed and evaluated against a clinical reference method. Results show that the sensor is accurate (i.e. strong agreement with an average ICC value of 0.99 and an average BSI coefficient of 2.76 < 4 breaths/min clinical threshold) and unbiased (i.e. average mean difference of -0.02 breaths/min). The sensor has promise for respiratory rate monitoring of bedridden patients even during shallow breathing. Future work includes addressing technology limitations, conducting a clinical pilot with a diverse patient population, and exploring potential in sleep quality assessment.

The measurement of vital signs is a risk-free, inexpensive, and reproducible clinical practice that enables identification of physiological deterioration of patients before an adverse event occurs. However, studies show that manual clinical measurements of respiratory rate are intermittent, biased, and inaccurate. Therefore, a contactless planar capacitive sensor was developed and evaluated against a clinical reference method. Results show that the sensor is accurate (i.e. strong agreement with an average ICC value of 0.99 and an average BSI coefficient of 2.76 < 4 breaths/min clinical threshold) and unbiased (i.e. average mean difference of -0.02 breaths/min). The sensor has promise for respiratory rate monitoring of bedridden patients even during shallow breathing. Future work includes addressing technology limitations, conducting a clinical pilot with a diverse patient population, and exploring potential in sleep quality assessment.