Vital signs monitoring with a UWB radar based on a correlation receiver

In the first part of this publication, vital signs detection observing small amplitude changes due to the movement of a target in front of the radar is shown. In the context of vital signs monitoring the target is the chest of human beings. This basic principle is also used in continuous wave (CW) radars, but the presented impulse-based UWB radar has moreover a range gating capability. Consequently, the target distance can be obtained and different targets (persons) can be monitored. Several measurement results using this measurement principle for respiration and in particular for heart beat monitoring are presented and discussed. Furthermore, the shortcomings of this method are depicted. In the second part, advanced signal post-processing by deconvolution with a Wiener filter is presented, leading to an improved resolution performance for the realized UWB radar system. Promising results of this method show that small targets can be identified in a multi-target scenario. Therefore, the movement of small targets, e. g. the heart muscle within the human body, could be tracked directly.