Method and device for measuring the rsa component from heart rate data

A computer-implemented method for calculating RSA from heartbeat sensor data comprising:

• (a) sampling a subject's heart beat during a window of time by a sensor to obtain heart beat sensor data;
• (b) transmitting, by the sensor, heart beat sensor data corresponding to each sample during the window to a computing device;
• (c) calculating, by the computing device, the inter beat intervals from the heart beat sensor data;
• (d) determining, by the computing device, an all-pole filter model that best fits the inter beat interval data;
• (e) calculating, by the computing device, positions of the filter model poles;
• (f) identifying, by the computing device, the pole with the largest modulus within a pre-specified sector of the unit circle;
• and
• (g) specifying, by the computing device, a value of RSA based on the identified pole.

A system for presenting biofeedback information to a plurality of human subjects comprising:

• a plurality of sensors, each sensor taking samples of heart rate data for a subject and transmitting heart rate data corresponding to the samples to a computing device;
• a computing device comprising:
• a receiver for receiving the heart rate data from each sensor;
• a storage device for storing a time series of the received heart rate sensor data for each sensor;
• speakers for playing a piece of music;
• a processor programmed to enable access to the storage device and to perform actions comprising:
• estimating an RSA strength of each subject's heart from the time series of received heart rate data for the sensor corresponding to the subject;
• calculating an accumulated RSA strength from a designated starting time until the present time for each subject;
• playing a piece of music on the speakers wherein the piece of music comprises parts for a plurality of musical instruments and wherein each user corresponds to one of said instruments;
• determining the volume of each instrument based on the most recent value of accumulated RSA strength for the corresponding user;
• and
• modulating the volume of each instrument based on the determined volume for the instrument.