“This is my heartbeat song and I’m gonna play it.” Kelly Clarkson may have been onto something when she wrote the lyrics to “Heartbeat Song.” The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently published details of a technology transfer opportunity for HeartBeatID that can identify individuals based solely on heartbeat data.
NASA scientists and engineers routinely innovate and develop new technology in the agency’s mission of exploration and discovery. NASA”s Technology Transfer Program makes the fruit of the agency’s labors available to the public for commercial development. The program licenses the rights to commercialize, manufacture, and market the technologies.
According to the California Institute of Technology’s NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, commercialized NASA-developed innovations include Nike Air athletic shoes, foil blankets, the Black & Decker Dustbuster, ear thermometers, Radiant Barrier home insulation, wireless headsets, memory foam, The Jaws of Life, portable computers, computer mice, and much more. The list goes on and on.
NASA offers HeartBeatID as a biometric identification technology to grant or decline authentication to individuals seeking access to resources. According to NASA, an individual’s heartbeat is unique. The agency proposes authentication applications that use HeartbeatID as biometric identification similar to fingerprints, voice-prints, retinal scans, and facial features.
Cardiac muscles are myogenic, meaning they generate depolarized and repolarized signals within the muscle without external stimulation. In other words, the tissues act both as muscle and as nerves. HeartBeatID technology is based on electrical signals detected in raw electrocardiography (ECG) signals associated with heart waves. The HeartBeatID authentication technology employs at least 192 statistical parameters based on peak amplitudes, time intervals, and depolarized and repolarized vector lengths and angles.
Heartbeat identification could have advantages over other biometric identification systems. Individuals or companies interested in licensing HeartBeatID can contact the Ames Research Center for more information. License applications should be submitted via NASA’s Automated Technology Licensing Application System (ATLAS).
