Abstract
Abstract. With a radar working in the 24 GHz ISM-band in a frequency modulated continuous wave mode the major vital signs heartbeat and respiration rate are monitored. The observation is hereby contactless with the patient sitting straight up in a distance of 1–2 m to the radar. Radar and sampling platform are components developed internally in the university institution. The communication with the radar is handled with MATLAB via TCP/IP. The signal processing and real-time visualization is developed in MATLAB, too. Cornerstone of this publication are the wavelet packet transformation and a spectral frequency estimation for vital sign calculation. The wavelet transformation allows a fine tuning of frequency subspaces, separating the heartbeat signal from the respiration and more important from noise and other movement. Heartbeat and respiration are monitored independently and compared to parallel recorded ECG-data.
Highlights
Examining a person’s health condition the initial step is the analysis of the vital signs in general
The electric waves pass through the body and can be detected sufficiently with adhesive electrodes on the skin
Vital sign measuring is most importantly done to trace the data in a live measurement as the data is needed immediately for further diagnosis
Summary
Examining a person’s health condition the initial step is the analysis of the vital signs in general. Since adhesive electrodes are stringently needed to tap the electric waves, there is no possibility to apply electrocardiography contactless This is an issue when patients with skin diseases, skin burns or newborns with extremely sensitive skin are monitored. The concept of the radar is a promising platform for monitoring two of the most pivotal vital signs: Heartbeat and respiration rate. A simulation of upper body movement is assembled providing a huge amount of data simulating different circumstances as different persons height, heartbeat and respiration frequencies and vary over time. A receding target flees from the emitted waves, so between two hits from wave fronts the time increases, the reflected wave’s frequency is lowered. To detect the distance of a target to the radar, is commonly an operation mode called frequency modulated continuous wave chosen. Is the target in motion there is an additional frequency shift due to the Doppler effect (Mahafza, 2009)
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