Evaluation of Perfusion and Thermal Parameters of Skin Tissue Using Cold Provocation and Thermographic Measurements

Abstract

Measurement of the perfusion coefficient and thermal parameters of skin tissue using dynamic thermography is presented in this paper. A novel approach based on cold provocation and thermal modelling of skin tissue is presented. The measurement was performed on a person’s forearm using a special cooling device equipped with the Peltier module. The proposed method first cools the skin, and then measures the changes of its temperature matching the measurement results with a heat transfer model to estimate the skin perfusion and other thermal parameters. In order to assess correctness of the proposed approach, the uncertainty analysis was performed.

Keywords

• active thermovision
• perfusion
• thermal model
• skin tissue
• measurement uncertainty