ToA-based multi-target localization and respiration detection using UWB radars

Changkyeong Kim,Joon-Yong Lee

doi:10.1186/1687-1499-2014-145

Abstract

This paper proposes a method of detecting the number of persons in an area, along with their locations and breath patterns, using ultra-wideband (UWB) radars. A time-of-arrival type of location estimation was performed in this study not only using techniques introduced in the existing study results of detecting biomedical signals using a UWB radar but also by applying an initial screening method for redundancy reduction and a maximum likelihood observation-target association technique. This paper also introduces radar measurements conducted under a variety of scenarios and presents the results of applying the proposed algorithm to the measured data. The test results showed that the number of targets was accurately estimated with an average positioning accuracy of 12.7 cm.

Highlights

Recently, significant attention has been paid to the noninvasive detection technology of human movement or biomedical signals for the purpose of patient monitoring and search and rescue
Through the initial screening process via frequency analysis, a considerable number of false alarms occurring at the detection process could be removed
False alarms, which were not removed by the initial screening, were removed effectively at the data association process

Summary

Introduction

Significant attention has been paid to the noninvasive detection technology of human movement or biomedical signals for the purpose of patient monitoring and search and rescue. There have been many studies on the technique of detecting the human breath and the heartbeat using a UWB radar [4,5,6,7,8,9]. It has been found through experimental results that the breath or the heartbeat can be detected when there is no obstacle between the radar and the human but even under a situation where the path between the two is blocked by walls [10,11,12,13,14,15]. Literature regarding the estimation of the target location as well as distance to a target can be found [15,18]

Objectives

Conclusion