# Image Enhancement for Remote Photoplethysmography in a Low-Light Environment

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.09336 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.09336/

## Key facts

- Cited by 23 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 33 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Mar 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Staple: Complementary Learners for Real-Time Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.01355/) (2015)
- [VIPL-HR: A Multi-modal Database for Pulse Estimation from Less-constrained Face Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04927/) (2018)
- [A Reproducible Study on Remote Heart Rate Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.00962/) (2017)
- [iPhys: An Open Non-Contact Imaging-Based Physiological Measurement Toolbox](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.04366/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [Advancing Generalizable Remote Physiological Measurement through the Integration of Explicit and Implicit Prior Knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06947/) (2024)
- [PhysMLE: Generalizable and Priors-Inclusive Multi-task Remote Physiological Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06201/) (2024)
- [PHASE-Net: Physics-Grounded Harmonic Attention System for Efficient Remote Photoplethysmography Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.24850/) (2025)
- [Bi-TTA: Bidirectional Test-Time Adapter for Remote Physiological Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17316/) (2024)
- [Remote Photoplethysmography in Real-World and Extreme Lighting Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11465/) (2025)
- [FreqPhys: Repurposing Implicit Physiological Frequency Prior for Robust Remote Photoplethysmography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.00534/) (2026)
- [Resolve Domain Conflicts for Generalizable Remote Physiological Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07855/) (2024)
- [Align the GAP: Prior-based Unified Multi-Task Remote Physiological Measurement Framework For Domain Generalization and Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16160/) (2025)
- [Continual Learning for Remote Physiological Measurement: Minimize Forgetting and Simplify Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.13974/) (2024)
- [Sage Deer: A Super-Aligned Driving Generalist Is Your Copilot](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10257/) (2025)
- [PhysNeXt: Next-Generation Dual-Branch Structured Attention Fusion Network for Remote Photoplethysmography Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19752/) (2026)
- [Remote Bio-Sensing: Open Source Benchmark Framework for Fair Evaluation of rPPG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.12644/) (2023)
- [rPPG-VQA: A Video Quality Assessment Framework for Unsupervised rPPG Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11156/) (2026)
- [PhysFlow: Frequency Decoupled with Dual-Field Rectified Flow for Remote Photoplethysmography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23226/) (2026)
- [RPM-Distill: Physiology-guided Adaptive Cross-modal Distillation for Robust Remote Physiological Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.28089/) (2026)
- [PhysAgent: A Multi-Agent Framework for Reliable Remote Heart Rate Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.00066/) (2026)
- [Period-LLM: Extending the Periodic Capability of Multimodal Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.24476/) (2025)
- [Exploring Remote Physiological Signal Measurement under Dynamic Lighting Conditions at Night: Dataset, Experiment, and Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.04306/) (2025)
- [FedHUG: Federated Heterogeneous Unsupervised Generalization for Remote Physiological Measurements](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.12132/) (2025)
- [SVC 2026: the Second Multimodal Deception Detection Challenge and the First Domain Generalized Remote Physiological Measurement Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.05748/) (2026)
- [PhysVR: Vision-Language Model Guided Interference-aware Temporal Feature Refinement for Remote Physiological Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.29663/) (2026)
- [FLOW: Feature-Level Optimal Warping for Generalized Remote Physiological Measurement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.38913/) (2026)
- [Why Do VLMs Fail at Remote Physiological Measurement? Rethinking with Physiological Grounding and Numerical Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19052/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

With the improvement of sensor technology and significant algorithmic advances, the accuracy of remote heart rate monitoring technology has been significantly improved. Despite of the significant algorithmic advances, the performance of rPPG algorithm can degrade in the long-term, high-intensity continuous work occurred in evenings or insufficient light environments. One of the main challenges is that the lost facial details and low contrast cause the failure of detection and tracking. Also, insufficient lighting in video capturing hurts the quality of physiological signal. In this paper, we collect a large-scale dataset that was designed for remote heart rate estimation recorded with various illumination variations to evaluate the performance of the rPPG algorithm (Green, ICA, and POS). We also propose a low-light enhancement solution (technical solution) for remote heart rate estimation under the low-light condition. Using collected dataset, we found 1) face detection algorithm cannot detect faces in video captured in low light conditions; 2) A decrease in the amplitude of the pulsatile signal will lead to the noise signal to be in the dominant position; and 3) the chrominance-based method suffers from the limitation in the assumption about skin-tone will not hold, and Green and ICA method receive less influence than POS in dark illuminance environment. The proposed solution for rPPG process is effective to detect and improve the signal-to-noise ratio and precision of the pulsatile signal.