Recent Advances in Radar-Based Sleep Monitoring — A Review

Non-contact acquisition of vital signs through radar technology is a very promising methodology that can address the shortcomings of the traditional contact-based medical devices and enable the move toward a more intelligent healthcare system. In particular, sleep monitoring has attracted a lot of interest these last years, due to the high demand for non-invasive sleep monitoring solutions and the surging number of sleep-related illnesses and disorders. Sleep Apnea is one such example that is widely spread across the world and is related to a lot of other health issues including high blood pressure, heart problems, type 2 diabetes, and daytime fatigue. Through this review, we first introduce the most prominent radar technology providers that enable sleep monitoring. Then, we highlight the academic research advances in the field of sleep monitoring in the last two years and we showcase the practical use in the industry by introducing some commercially available radar-based sleep monitoring devices on the market. Finally, we conclude with a discussion about the current challenges and open issues facing the wide adoption of this technology and possible research direction that can remedy that.