On the estimation of respiration and heart rates via an IR-UWB radar: An algorithmic perspective

In this paper, an impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) radar is used to continuously monitor a resting subject's respiration and heart rates in a noninvasive fashion in order to observe the corresponding health status. These two cardiopulmonary vital signs are inferred based on the processing of recorded waveforms that are collected by the IR-UWB radar, after getting reflected-off the resting subject's body. A novel algorithm that processes the recorded waveforms is proposed to extract these vitals' signals and, accordingly, estimate their rates. This algorithm is comprised of three major parts: i) noise reduction, ii) respiration rate extraction, and iii) heart rate extraction. Furthermore, the algorithm addresses the effects of harmonics and intermodulation between the breathing and heartbeat signals without requiring the implementation of filters. Given an alphabet of datasets that are collected on multiple subjects, numerical results are presented to corroborate the proposed algorithm's accuracy.