Heart wall velocity sensing using pulsed radar

A portable, hand-held radar module for hemodynamic heart monitoring using wideband radar is presented. The system consist of body coupled antennas, RF-amplifiers and core radar processor (adapted Novelda X2 chip) suitable for point-of-care use. Velocity measurements are compared with tissue doppler echocardiography for hemodynamic assessments. Both timing and amplitude of the velocity curves match, indicating the feasibility of using pulsed radar as a new modality for heart monitoring. With small size (60 mm × 30 mm × 50 mm) and low power consumption (< 1.5 W) the X2 SoC based pulsed radar system is suitable for portable hemodynamic heart monitoring. In the preliminary assessment consistency of the recorded data show low sensitivity to module placement indicating a robust system. Potentially the radar can be used by non-specialist for simple and frequent self-assessment.