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A new wearable system-on-a-chip UWB radar for health care systems is presented. The idea and its applications to the safety improvement of emergency operators are discussed. The system consists of a wearable wireless interface including a fully integrated UWB radar for the detection of the heart beat and breath rates, and a IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee radio interface. The principle of operation of the UWB radar for the monitoring of the heart wall is explained hereinafter. The results obtained by the feasibility study regarding its implementation on a modern standard silicon technology (CMOS 90 nm) are reported, demonstrating (at simulation level) the effectiveness of such an approach and enabling the standard silicon technology for new generations of wireless sensors for heath care and safeguard wearable systems.

A fully differential analog multiplier for wideband operations is presented. The circuit consists of a p-MOSFET common-gate differential pair input stage for wideband impedance matching, a p-MOSFET Gilbert quad as a multiplier stage, and active loads. The circuit has been designed and fabricated in 90-nm CMOS. The test-chip area is 560 \times 700\ \mu\m^2. The overall power consumption is 3.7 mW from a 1.2-V power supply. In the case of input monocycle pulses with duration time of 700 ps, the measurements show an input–output energy ratio equal to 2, a conversion gain of 12.7 dB at intermediate frequencies in the range of 0.001–10 MHz for input tones in the range of 2–4 GHz, a noise figure of 14.4 dB (minimum) and compression points of -3.5 and -2 dBm for the two inputs. The performance of the proposed multiplier favorably compares with the state of the art. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A new system-on-a-chip radar sensor for next-generation wearable wireless interface applied to the human health care and safeguard is presented. The system overview is provided and the feasibility study of the radar sensor is presented. In detail, the overall system consists of a radar sensor for detecting the heart and breath rates and a low-power IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee radio interface, which provides a wireless data link with remote data acquisition and control units. In particular, the pulse radar exploits 3.1-10.6GHz ultra-wideband signals which allow a significant reduction of the transceiver complexity and then of its power consumption. The operating principle of the radar for the cardiopulmonary monitoring is highlighted and the results of the system analysis are reported. Moreover, the results obtained from the building-blocks design, the channel measurement, and the ultrawideband antenna realization are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]