Device agreement study, 40 volunteers, 72,000 paired readings

Biomedical engineering research poster example

A biomedical engineering research poster for a device test is an agreement study: how close is the new sensor to the reference, and where does it fail. This A0 landscape board tests a wearable heart rate patch in 40 volunteers, 72,000 paired readings, with a hero line chart of error by activity and the patch within 5 bpm on 96% of exercise readings.

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The whole board

The poster at full size, exactly as it prints. Every number, citation and caption on it was written for this example, so the layout is being judged on real content.

KVU
Does a wearable heart rate patch keep up during exercise? Agreement with a reference monitor in 40 volunteers
N. Farrow ¹, A. Petrakis ¹, J. Mwangi ¹ ²
1 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kestrel Vale University · 2 Human Performance Laboratory, Kestrel Vale University
Abstract
A chest worn patch was tested against a reference chest strap monitor in 40 volunteers, each recorded for 15 minutes at rest and 15 minutes of exercise. That gave 72,000 paired one second readings. Mean absolute error was 1.2 bpm at rest and 3.8 bpm in exercise, and the patch stayed within 5 bpm of the reference on 96% of exercise readings.
METHODS
Volunteers. 40 healthy adults aged 19 to 58, 21 women and 19 men, recruited by notice on campus. None had a pacemaker or a known arrhythmia.
Protocol. 30 minutes each: 5 minutes lying, 5 sitting and 5 standing, then 5 minutes walking, 5 jogging and 5 cycling at a set workload.
Devices. The patch on the left chest and a reference monitor strap worn at the same time, both logging heart rate once a second.
Pairing. 40 volunteers by 1,800 seconds gives 72,000 paired readings, 36,000 at rest and 36,000 in exercise, aligned on a shared clock.
Analysis. Mean absolute error by activity, share of readings within 5 bpm, and bias with 95% limits of agreement for rest and exercise.
96%
of exercise readings within 5 bpm
34,560 of 36,000 paired one second readings during walking, jogging and cycling; 99.6% at rest
Motion at foot strike: 288 of the 504 errors over 10 bpm
Electrode lift as sweat built up: 151 of the 504
Missed beats when cadence changed: 65 of the 504
No error over 10 bpm at rest in any of the 40 volunteers
bpm
Lying
Sitting
Standing
Walking
Jogging
Cycling
02468
Figure 1. Mean absolute error against the reference monitor, bpm, by activity: lying, sitting, standing, walking, jogging and cycling.
Source: 72,000 paired readings, 40 volunteers, 2026.
Results
Error rose with movement, from 1.0 bpm lying to 4.7 bpm cycling. Limits of agreement: rest bias +0.3 bpm, 95% limits -2.6 to +3.2; exercise bias -1.1 bpm, limits -8.9 to +6.7. Of 36,000 exercise readings, 1,440 were more than 5 bpm out and 504 more than 10 bpm out, mostly at foot strike in jogging. No reading taken lying or sitting was more than 6 bpm out. References: 1. Ostrander, K. (2024) Patch electrodes in motion. J Wearable Eng 9(2) 41 to 58. 2. Lune, T. and Bassi, R. (2025) Agreement studies for consumer heart rate devices. Biomed Meas Rev 17(1) 3 to 19.

Block by block

What each block on the board is for, in the order a reader walks it.

Title band and three authors
The title asks whether the patch keeps up during exercise and names the reference monitor and the 40 volunteers, with two affiliations under the names.
Abstract
The protocol in one line, the 72,000 paired readings, the two error figures, 1.2 bpm at rest and 3.8 bpm in exercise, and the 96% headline.
Methods
Five labelled entries: the volunteers, the six five minute activities, the two devices worn together, how the readings were paired and what the analysis measured.
Key number
The stat block holds 96%, the share of exercise readings within 5 bpm, with 34,560 of 36,000 and the 99.6% rest figure underneath.
Failure modes as key points
The checked list carries the three failure modes the brief asked for, with their counts out of 504 large errors, plus a fourth point: no error over 10 bpm at rest in any volunteer.
Figure 1, the hero chart
A line of mean absolute error across lying, sitting, standing, walking, jogging and cycling. The rest values average 1.2 bpm and the exercise values 3.8 bpm, matching the abstract.
Results, with limits and references
This design has no table or reference block, so the limits of agreement, rest bias +0.3 bpm and exercise bias -1.1 bpm with their 95% limits, and two references sit in the results text.

What makes this board work

The hero figure is the finding

Error by activity, from 1.0 bpm lying to 4.7 bpm cycling, takes the largest block on the board. The rising line shows that movement, not time, is what breaks the sensor, which is the point of the study.

The arithmetic is on the board

The pairing entry says 40 volunteers by 1,800 seconds gives 72,000 readings, half at rest and half in exercise. A reader can check 96% of 36,000 is 34,560 without leaving the poster.

Failure modes have counts

The four checked points split the 504 errors over 10 bpm into 288 at foot strike, 151 from electrode lift and 65 from missed beats, so an engineer reading it knows what to fix first.

Questions people ask

What goes on a biomedical engineering poster for a device test?

The reference you compared against, the protocol that stressed the device, the number of paired readings, an error measure, limits of agreement and the failure modes. Readers in this field want to know where the sensor breaks, so state the conditions that produced the worst errors rather than only an overall accuracy figure.

Why show error by activity rather than one overall figure?

Because one figure hides the problem. Across all 72,000 readings this patch looks close to perfect, but the error triples between standing and cycling. Splitting by activity shows a designer the motion conditions to test next, and shows a clinician which uses the device can and cannot support yet.

Where do limits of agreement go when there is no table block?

Into the results text, written as bias with lower and upper limits for each condition. This layout has no table, so the board gives rest bias +0.3 bpm with limits -2.6 to +3.2 and exercise bias -1.1 bpm with limits -8.9 to +6.7. Two conditions fit comfortably in a sentence.

Can I add a Bland Altman plot to this board?

Not as a true scatter. The chart kinds available are bars, columns, lines, areas, pies, donuts, radar, waterfall and waffle, ten in all, and none plots individual paired differences. A line of error by condition, as here, plus the limits in the text is the closest honest version on this design.

How many references can this layout show?

None in a dedicated block. This hero figure design is one of six poster layouts without a reference block, so the two citations are written at the end of the results section. If your conference requires a full reference list, a design with a reference block holds three to five numbered entries.

What does generating a board like this cost?

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Sources

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