On-the-Fly Sleep Scoring Algorithm with Heart Rate, RR Intervals and Accelerometer as Input

In many applications, recognizing the depth of sleep (e.g., light, deep, REM sleep) while the subject is sleeping enables innovative features. For instance, in SAE Level 4 autonomous driving, a driver may need to takeover the vehicle control in case the autopilot is exiting its operational design domain. Depending on the depth of the sleep, the subject may need time to takeover effectively; hence, it is particularly relevant to know in which sleep stage the subject is (e.g., light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep), and possibly initiate actions to prevent the subject to remain in those sleep stages that lead to longer takeover time. Sleep stage classification can be achieved through an on-the-fly algorithm, which generates output in response to each input portion without knowledge of future inputs, unlike an off-Line algorithm that provides output just after receiving the entire input sequence. Various studies have analyzed algorithms or devices that identify sleep stages during the night; however, these typically require electroencephalography (EEG), which is obtrusive, or specialized devices. This study describes the development of an on-the-fly sleep-scoring algorithm using Heart Rate (HR), RR intervals, which is the distance between two consecutive heartbeats, and accelerometer data from a smartwatch, widespread, non-invasive, and affordable but accurate device. The subjects involved in our study wore a commercial off-the-shelf wearable device during a full night’s sleep, and were also monitored using a reference medical device to establish the ground truth by means of a full polysomnography (PSG) analysis. The on-the-fly sleep scoring algorithm based on smartwatch data was tested against PSG-based scoring, achieving 88.46% accuracy, 91.42% precision, and 93.52% sensitivity in sleep–wake identification. Deep sleep was correctly identified 69.38% of times, light sleep in 50.62%, REM sleep 62.02% and wakefulness 73.48% of times.