Using ultra-wideband sensing technology for intestinal motility measurement

Clinically many methodologies, both invasive and non-invasive, have been applied on the assessment of intestinal function in vivo. In routine, there are two preferable non-invasive methods, including ultrasound imaging and stethoscope, to get insight of intestinal motility for clinical diagnosis. However, the operation of traditional monitors is relied on professionals' experience, and also the sensing probes needed to attach to the patient's abdomen directly. The measurement procedure is easy to cause infection and uncomfortable. To improve the issues of these measuring techniques, the non-contact physiological parameters measuring technology will become an important innovation. In this paper, the novel ultra-wideband (UWB) based sensing technology, which includes UWB radio frequency (RF) pulse transmission and a Vivaldi antenna connected to UWB transceiver via coaxial cable, is proposed to non-contact monitor intestine activity. To evaluate the performance, the proposed method was applied on intestine motility measurement in the experiment with with/without drinking milk. As a result, the proposed method is validated to perform the capability of long-term continuous monitoring to reveal intestinal motility information in real-time.