Non-invasive respiration rate monitoring using a single COTS TX-RX pair

Respiratory rate is an important vital sign that can indicate progression of illness but to also predict rapid decline in health. For the purpose, non-contact monitoring systems are becoming more popular due to the self-evident increase in patient comfort. As a cost effective solution for non-invasive breathing monitoring, utilizing the received signal strength measurements of inexpensive transceivers has been proposed. However, the applicability of the available solutions is limited since they rely on numerous sensors. In this work, considerable improvement is made, and a respiratory rate monitoring system based on a single commercial off-the-shelf transmitter-receiver pair is presented. Methods that enable estimation and enhance the accuracy are presented and their effects are evaluated. Moreover, it is empirically demonstrated that the performance of the system is comparable to the accuracy of a high-end device for 3–4 orders of magnitude less price; achieving mean absolute error of 0.12 breaths per minute in the most realistic scenario of the experiments.