Abstract

Apnea diving is a sport where people dive without supplemental oxygen, using only one breath. A significant risk of this sport is the danger of sudden loss of consciousness caused by low oxygen saturation in the blood. The aim of the project in which this work takes place is to make the sport safer for (amateur) divers. For this purpose, a prototype of a supportive device has already been developed, which is based on the pulse oximetry method. In this work an improved estimation of oxygen saturation is performed which is calculated using the signals recorded by the device. Three measures were used for this purpose: determining a suitable measurement position, detecting movement artefacts and investigating algorithms to reduce these artefacts. With the selected measurement position on the forehead, there was substantial signal interference during the dives, which could not be sufficiently reduced by the algorithms investigated. Therefore, the main outcome of this work is that the procedure of pulse oximetry is unreliable during apnea diving. However, the collected data and considerations can be valuable for further research.