2.5 KiB
07 — Negative results (R13 contactless BP)
Productive failure: empirical / physics-based scrutiny of widely-claimed but un-validated CSI capabilities.
Scripts
| Script | Thread | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
r13_bp_physics_floor.py |
R13 | Don't ship contactless BP from CSI as a primary RuView feature. Four physics floors make it provably worse than a $20 arm cuff. |
The four floors (R13)
| Floor | Need | Have | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| PTT temporal resolution | 0.5 ms (for 1 mmHg) | 10 ms typical, 1 ms max ESP32 | typical ESP32 deployment cannot do <20 mmHg |
| Spatial separation of two body sites | 55 cm | 40 cm Fresnel envelope at 5 m | sites NOT resolvable by single link |
| Pulse-contour SNR | +25 dB | +20 dB after bandpass | 5 dB short (matches R6.1's 4.7 dB penalty) |
| Vs $20 arm cuff baseline | ±2 mmHg | best published ±10 mmHg | 5× worse + needs per-subject calibration |
Why R13 is sensor-bound, not physics-bound-period
R20 (tick 37) + doc 17 + ADR-114 establish that the 5 dB shortfall is the multi-scatterer penalty (R6.1). It's sensor-bound: a different sensor (NV-diamond magnetometer at bedside) recovers what CSI cannot.
| Sensor | Can detect HRV contour? | Can detect BP? |
|---|---|---|
| CSI alone (R13 NEGATIVE) | ❌ 5 dB short | ❌ same physics |
| NV-diamond at 1 m bedside (ADR-114) | ✅ SDNN 119 ms | ✅ via mm-PWV |
| Arm cuff (gold standard) | n/a | ✅ ±2 mmHg |
R13's value in the loop
Categorising R13 as a permanent physics-floor negative initially saved engineering effort. Then R20 + doc 17 + ADR-114 recategorised it as sensor-bound, recoverable. This is the research-loop pattern at its best: explicit failure modes that survive scrutiny but get reclassified when new tools arrive.
R20.1 (quantum-fusion demo) is the concrete demonstration that R13's recovery works.
Three niche scenarios where BP-from-CSI might close
- Single-subject trend monitoring (relative not absolute)
- Bed-instrumented controlled-still subject (25+ dB SNR achievable)
- Multistatic PWV with 6+ anchors + per-installation calibration
The general "BP from a $9 ESP32 in the corner" claim does not close.
See also
- Research notes:
docs/research/sota-2026-05-22/R13-contactless-bp-negative.md - Recovery path:
docs/research/sota-2026-05-22/R20-*.md, doc 17, ADR-114 - The other 2 negative result categories: R12 (missing-tool, revisitable) in
06-structure-detection/, R3.1 (architecture-error) in05-cross-room-reid/