English

EMPD: An Event-based Multimodal Physiological Dataset for Remote Pulse Wave Detection

Signal Processing 2026-03-31 v1 Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Machine Learning

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 significant signals detectable by a neuromorphic sensor. The hardware platform integrates a high-resolution event camera to capture micro-motions and intensity transients, an industrial RGB camera to provide traditional rPPG benchmarks, and a clinical-grade pulse oximeter to record ground truth PPG waveforms. EMPD contains 193 valid records collected from 83 subjects, covering a wide heart rate range (40-110 BPM) under both resting and post-exercise conditions. By providing precisely synchronized multimodal data with microsecond-level temporal precision, EMPD serves as a crucial resource for developing robust algorithms in the field of neuromorphic physiological monitoring. The dataset is publicly available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18765701

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.26699,
  title  = {EMPD: An Event-based Multimodal Physiological Dataset for Remote Pulse Wave Detection},
  author = {Qian Feng and Pengfei Li and Rongshan Gao and Jiale Xu and Rui Gong and Yidi Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.26699},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

12 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:41:20.177Z