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Vital signs such as heart rate and respiration rate are among the most important physiological signals for health monitoring and medical applications. Impulse radio (IR) ultra-wideband (UWB) radar becomes one of the essential sensors in non-contact vital signs detection. The heart pulse wave is easily corrupted by noise and respiration activity since the heartbeat signal has less power compared with the breathing signal and its harmonics. In this paper, a signal processing technique for a UWB radar system was developed to detect the heart rate and respiration rate. There are four main stages of signal processing: (1) clutter removal to reduce the static random noise from the environment; (2) independent component analysis (ICA) to do dimension reduction and remove noise; (3) using low-pass and high-pass filters to eliminate the out of band noise; (4) modified covariance method for spectrum estimation. Furthermore, higher harmonics of heart rate were used to estimate heart rate and minimize respiration interference. The experiments in this article contain different scenarios including bed angle, body position, as well as interference from the visitor near the bed and away from the bed. The results were compared with the ECG sensor and respiration belt. The average mean absolute error (MAE) of heart rate results is 1.32 for the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new image reconstruction algorithm, termed as delay-multiply-and-sum (DMAS), for breast cancer detection using an ultra-wideband confocal microwave imaging technique is proposed. In DMAS algorithm, the backscattered signals received from numerical breast phantoms simulated using the finite-difference time-domain method are time shifted, multiplied in pair, and the products are summed to form a synthetic focal point. The effectiveness of the DMAS algorithm is shown by applying it to backscattered signals received from a variety of numerical breast phantoms. The reconstructed images illustrate improvement in identification of embedded malignant tumors over the delay-and-sum algorithm. Successful detection and localization of tumors as small as 2 mm in diameter are also demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extinction pulse (E-pulse) technique has been widely applied to the problem of free-space radar target identification. In this paper, the possibility of applying the same E-pulse technique to a subsurface target recognition scheme is investigated. In particular, the detection of depth changes of a metallic target is considered with numerical examples that determine the depth of a hip prosthesis model buried inside representative human tissue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel amplitude-comparison monopulse receiver architecture for ultra-wideband radars. This monopulse receiver consists of four ridged-horn antennas placed in a square-feed configuration, a comparator circuit that generates the monopulse sum and difference signals, cross-correlation receivers that detect the monopulse signals, and an amplitude-comparison monopulse processor that determines the target's angular position. The derived monopulse sum and difference signals are verified through measurements. The derived sum and difference patterns are compared with measured patterns, and they show good agreements--measured 3-dB beamwidth = 6.4°(derived = 6°), measured unambiguous tracking range = ±5°(derived = ±5°), and measured sum pattern sidelobe level = -6 dB (derived = -8 dB). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a computational study comparing the performance of narrowband (NB) microwave hyperthermia for breast cancer treatment with a recently proposed ultra-wideband (UWB) approach. Space-time beamforming is used to preprocess input signals from both UWB and NB sources. The train of UWB pulses or the NB sinusoidal signals are then transmitted simultaneously from multiple antennas into the breast. Performance is evaluated using finite-difference time-domain electromagnetic (EM) and thermal simulations with realistic numerical breast phantoms derived from magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of the breast. We use three methods of mapping MRI data to complex permittivity data to account for uncertainty in the embodiment of the dielectric properties transitions in heterogeneous breast tissue. EM power-density deposition profiles and temperature profiles are compared for the UWB and NB cases in the three different breast phantoms. Dominant mechanisms that influence the efficacy of focusing UWB and NB signals in the breast are identified. The results of this study suggest that, while NB focusing performs reasonably well when the excitation frequency is optimized, UWB focusing consistently performs better, offering the potential for tighter focusing and greater reduction of hot spots, particularly in breast tissue, which exhibits distinct dielectric-properties boundaries within the tissue heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Radar-based life detecting technology has been researched more and more in recent years and applied widely in several areas. However, few researches on multi-subjects detecting and locating have been reported. Even these researches are mainly based on imaging technology with two shortcomings, namely the interference of ghost and difficult to focus the target's position. A new coarse-to-fine approach for detecting and locating of human targets using single-input multiple-output (SIMO) radar under penetration conditions is proposed. The approach realized automatic recognition and localization of human subjects without any prior information, such as target count. Firstly, an improved censored mean level detector constant false alarm rate (CMLD-CFAR) by adding a feature to distinguish vital sign from background is proposed in each inner-channel to coarsely determine the targets' time-of-arrival (TOA) distances. Secondly, the real targets count is finely determined by calculating the inter-channel Pearson correlation coefficient of signals from different channels. Then, a back projection (BP) is presented to calculate the targets' 2-D locations. In the experiments of single and multi-target locating, all targets were identified correctly and localized near their actual positions with errors within 0.3 m. With the distinctive telescopic structure of the proposed radar, the azimuth resolution of locating is adjustable. Compare to current radar system for radar multi-target locating, like multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, the proposed system can improve accuracy and automation of localization while decline the cost and complexity. It has potential to promote practical application of locating trapped human targets in post-disaster rescue and intelligent homeware fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vital signs such as heart rate and respiration rate are among the most important physiological signals for health monitoring and medical applications. Impulse radio (IR) ultra-wideband (UWB) radar becomes one of the essential sensors in non-contact vital signs detection. The heart pulse wave is easily corrupted by noise and respiration activity since the heartbeat signal has less power compared with the breathing signal and its harmonics. In this paper, a signal processing technique for a UWB radar system was developed to detect the heart rate and respiration rate. There are four main stages of signal processing: (1) clutter removal to reduce the static random noise from the environment; (2) independent component analysis (ICA) to do dimension reduction and remove noise; (3) using low-pass and high-pass filters to eliminate the out of band noise; (4) modified covariance method for spectrum estimation. Furthermore, higher harmonics of heart rate were used to estimate heart rate and minimize respiration interference. The experiments in this article contain different scenarios including bed angle, body position, as well as interference from the visitor near the bed and away from the bed. The results were compared with the ECG sensor and respiration belt. The average mean absolute error (MAE) of heart rate results is 1.32 for the proposed algorithm.