Emergency Response Person Localization and Vital Sign Estimation Using a Semi-Autonomous Robot Mounted SFCW Radar.

The large number and scale of natural and man-made disasters have led to an urgent demand for technologies that enhance the safety and efficiency of search and rescue teams. Semi-autonomous rescue robots are beneficial, especially when searching inaccessible terrains, or dangerous environments, such as collapsed infrastructures. For search and rescue missions in degraded visual conditions or non-line of sight scenarios, radar-based approaches may contribute to acquire valuable, and otherwise unavailable information. This article presents a complete signal processing chain for radar-based multi-person detection, 2D-MUSIC localization and breathing frequency estimation. The proposed method shows promising results on a challenging emergency response dataset that we collected using a semi-autonomous robot equipped with a commercially available through-wall radar system. The dataset is composed of 62 scenarios of various difficulty levels with up to five persons captured in different postures, angles and ranges including wooden and stone obstacles that block the radar line of sight. Ground truth data for reference locations, respiration, electrocardiogram, and acceleration signals are included.

Contactless analysis of heart rate variability during cold pressor test using radar interferometry and bidirectional LSTM networks.

Contactless measurement of heart rate variability (HRV), which reflects changes of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and provides crucial information on the health status of a person, would provide great benefits for both patients and doctors during prevention and aftercare. However, gold standard devices to record the HRV, such as the electrocardiograph, have the common disadvantage that they need permanent skin contact with the patient. Being connected to a monitoring device by cable reduces the mobility, comfort, and compliance by patients. Here, we present a contactless approach using a 24 GHz Six-Port-based radar system and an LSTM network for radar heart sound segmentation. The best scores are obtained using a two-layer bidirectional LSTM architecture. To verify the performance of the proposed system not only in a static measurement scenario but also during a dynamic change of HRV parameters, a stimulation of the ANS through a cold pressor test is integrated in the study design. A total of 638 minutes of data is gathered from 25 test subjects and is analysed extensively. High F-scores of over 95% are achieved for heartbeat detection. HRV indices such as HF norm are extracted with relative errors around 5%. Our proposed approach is capable to perform contactless and convenient HRV monitoring and is therefore suitable for long-term recordings in clinical environments and home-care scenarios.

A portable primary radar for general aviation.

A detailed situation awareness of the local environment is essential for safe flight in General Aviation. When operating under Visual Flight Rules, eyesight is crucial for maintaining situation awareness and objects may be overlooked. Technical solutions such as Flarm have been sought, but they only work on a basis of co-operation: obstacles without the proper equipment are invisible. Recent developments in the field of radar technology, partly empowered by the demand for sensors for autonomous cars, have improved the size and power consumption of available hardware. Today, the hardware exists to build a portable primary radar system for situation awareness. In this paper the results are presented of efforts to build the first portable primary radar for general, which has to be lightweight, cheap and have a low power consumption. The focus in this paper is on the software design of such a radar system. The physical principles of radar sensing are described, as well as the scientific steps needed to provide situation awareness. The hardware and software for the radar are both built and tested, and the results of these tests are presented. A flight experiment is performed with a small aircraft flying past a stationary radar on a small hill. It is found that the radar is capable of detecting the aircraft up to a distance of at least 3 kilometers. 3D localization is performed and the location determined by the radar was on average 46 meters away from the aircraft position as measured by satellite navigation, relative to a total distance of about 1000 meters from the radar. A low-pass filter can be applied on the raw results in order to improve the location estimation further. Future research will focus on bringing the portable radar in motion while operating.

A Novel Non-contact Self-Injection-Locked Radar for Vital Sign Sensing and Body Movement Monitoring in COVID-19 Isolation Ward.

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has become the most serious global health issue. Isolation policy in hospitals is one of the most crucial protocols to prevent nosocomial infection of COVID-19. It is important to monitor and assess the physical conditions of the patients in isolation. METHODS: Our institution has installed the novel non-contact wireless sensor for vital sign sensing and body movement monitoring for patients in COVID-19 isolation ward. RESULTS: We have collected and compared data between the radar record with the nurse's handover record of two patients, one recorded for 13 days and the other recorded for 5 days. The P value by Fisher's exact test were 0.139 (temperature, P > 0.05) and 0.292 (heart beat rate, P > 0.05) respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first report about the application experience of this equipment. Therefore we attempted to share the experience and try to apply this equipment in COVID-19 patients in future to offer the more reliable and safe policy.

Non-contact diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea using impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar.

While full-night polysomnography is the gold standard for the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea, its limitations include a high cost and first-night effects. This study developed an algorithm for the detection of respiratory events based on impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar and verified its feasibility for the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea. A total of 94 subjects were enrolled in this study (23 controls and 24, 14, and 33 with mild, moderate, and severe obstructive sleep apnea, respectively). Abnormal breathing detected by impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar was defined as a drop in the peak radar signal by ≥30% from that in the pre-event baseline. We compared the abnormal breathing index obtained from impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar and apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) measured from polysomnography. There was an excellent agreement between the Abnormal Breathing Index and AHI (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.927). The overall agreements of the impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar were 0.93 for Model 1 (AHI ≥ 5), 0.91 for Model 2 (AHI ≥ 15), and 1 for Model 3 (AHI ≥ 30). Impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar accurately detected respiratory events (apneas and hypopneas) during sleep without subject contact. Therefore, impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar may be used as a screening tool for obstructive sleep apnea.

Automatic Signal Quality Index Determination of Radar-Recorded Heart Sound Signals Using Ensemble Classification.

OBJECTIVE: Radar technology promises to be a touchless and thereby burden-free method for continuous heart sound monitoring, which can be used to detect cardiovascular diseases. However, the first and most crucial step is to differentiate between high- and low-quality segments in a recording to assess their suitability for a subsequent automated analysis. This paper gives a comprehensive study on this task and first addresses the specific characteristics of radar-recorded heart sound signals. METHODS: To gather heart sound signals recorded from radar, a bistatic radar system was built and installed at the university hospital. Under medical supervision, heart sound data were recorded from 30 healthy test subjects. The signals were segmented and labeled as high- or low-quality by a medical expert. Different state-of-the-art pattern classification algorithms were evaluated for the task of automated signal quality determination and the most promising one was optimized and evaluated using leave-one-subject-out cross validation. RESULTS: The proposed classifier is able to achieve an accuracy of up to 96.36% and demonstrates a superior classification performance compared with the state-of-the-art classifier with a maximum accuracy of 76.00%. CONCLUSION: This paper introduces an ensemble classifier that is able to perform automated signal quality determination of radar-recorded heart sound signals with a high accuracy. SIGNIFICANCE: Besides achieving a higher performance compared with state-of-the-art classifiers, this study is the first one to deal with the quality determination of heart sounds that are recorded by radar systems. The proposed method enables contactless and continuous heart sound monitoring for the detection of cardiovascular diseases.

Validation of noncontact cardiorespiratory monitoring using impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar against nocturnal polysomnography.

PURPOSE: Polysomnography (PSG) is a standard diagnostic test for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). However, PSG requires many skin-contacted sensors to monitor vital signs of patients, which may also hamper patients' sleep. Because impulse-radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) radar can detect the movements of heart and lungs without contact, it may be utilized for vital sign monitoring during sleep. Therefore, we aimed to verify the accuracy and reliability of the breathing rate (BR) and the heart rate (HR) measured by IR-UWB radar. METHOD: Data acquisition with PSG and IR-UWB radar was performed simultaneously in 6 healthy volunteers and in 15 patients with suspected OSA. Subjects were divided into 4 groups (normal, mild OSA, moderate OSA, and severe OSA) according to the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI). BRs and HRs obtained from the radar using a software algorithm were compared with the BRs (chest belt) and the HRs (electrocardiography) obtained from the PSG. RESULTS: In normal and in mild OSA, BRs (intraclass correlation coefficients R [ICCR] 0.959 [0.956-0.961] and 0.957 [0.955-0.960], respectively) and HRs ([ICCR] 0.927 [0.922-0.931] and 0.926 [0.922-0.931], respectively) measured in the radar showed excellent agreement with those measured in PSG. In moderate and severe OSA, BRs ([ICCR] 0.957 [0.956-0.959] and 0.873 [0.864-0.882], respectively) and HRs ([ICCR] 0.907 [0.904-0.910] and 0.799 [0.784-0.812], respectively) from the two methods also agreed well. CONCLUSIONS: The IR-UWB radar could accurately measure BRs and HRs in sleeping patients with OSA. Therefore, IR-UWB radar may be utilized as a cardiopulmonary monitor during sleep.

An Innovative Harmonic Radar to Track Flying Insects: the Case of Vespa velutina.

Over the last 30 years, harmonic radars have been effective only in tracking insects flying at low altitude and over flat terrain. We developed an innovative harmonic radar, implementing the most advanced radar techniques, which covers a large field of view in elevation (with an angular aperture of about 24°) and can track insects up to a range of 500 m. We show all the components of this new harmonic radar and its first application, the tracking of Vespa velutina (yellow-legged Asian hornet). This is an invasive species which, although indigenous to South-East Asia, is spreading quickly to other regions of the world. Because of its fast diffusion and the serious threat it poses to both honeybee colonies and to humans, control measures are mandatory. When equipped with a small passive transponder, this radar system can track the flight trajectory of insects and locate nests to be destroyed. This tool has potential not only for monitoring V. velutina but also for tracking other larger insects and small size vertebrates.

Multiple Targets Tracking with Big Data-Based Measurement for Extended Binary Phase Shift Keying Transceiver.

Extended binary phase shift keying (EBPSK) transmit-receive system is considered as a high-resolution radar tracking system. The target kinematic states can be estimated from a time series of target range and velocity measurements. The measurements usually have a huge amount of data. In this article, we present a big data-based tracking strategy comprising Doppler measurements as part of the data association procedure and evaluate the advantages of the proposed scheme. First, the principle of EBPSK transceiver is introduced. In the proposed system, range spread target can be denoted by the target impulse response. Second, we proposed an efficient big data association scheme that utilizes both target range and target velocity measurements for linear multitarget (LMs) tracking. When the target velocity measurements are not incorporated into target kinematic state estimation, the nonlinear filter bank for the combination of the component of target velocity measurements is not necessary. Finally, a great enhancement in the tracking performance of the big Doppler data association method with the LMs combined probabilistic data association scheme is demonstrated by simulation experiment.

Radar micro-Doppler signatures of drones and birds at K-band and W-band.

Due to the substantial increase in the number of affordable drones in the consumer market and their regrettable misuse, there is a need for efficient technology to detect drones in airspace. This paper presents the characteristic radar micro-Doppler properties of drones and birds. Drones and birds both induce micro-Doppler signatures due to their propeller blade rotation and wingbeats, respectively. These distinctive signatures can then be used to differentiate a drone from a bird, along with studying them separately. Here, experimental measurements of micro-Doppler signatures of different types of drones and birds are presented and discussed. The data have been collected using two radars operating at different frequencies; K-band (24 GHz) and W-band (94 GHz). Three different models of drones and four species of birds of varying sizes have been used for data collection. The results clearly demonstrate that a phase coherent radar system can retrieve highly reliable and distinctive micro-Doppler signatures of these flying targets, both at K-band and W-band. Comparison of the signatures obtained at the two frequencies indicates that the micro-Doppler return from the W-band radar has higher SNR. However, micro-Doppler features in the K-band radar returns also reveal the micro-motion characteristics of drones and birds very effectively.

Accuracy of remote continuous respiratory rate monitoring technologies intended for low care clinical settings: a prospective observational study.

PURPOSE: Altered respiratory rate (RR) has been identified as an important predictor of serious adverse events during hospitalization. Introduction of a well-tolerated continuous RR monitor could potentially reduce serious adverse events such as opioid-induced respiratory depression. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of different monitor devices to detect RR in low care clinical settings. METHODS: This was a prospective method-comparison study with a cross-sectional design. Thoracic impedance pneumography (IPG), frequency modulated continuous wave radar, and an acoustic breath sounds monitor were compared with the gold standard of capnography for their ability to detect RR in breaths per minute (breaths·min-1) in awake postoperative patients in the postanesthesia care unit. The Bland and Altman method for repeated measurements and mixed effect modelling was used to obtain bias and limits of agreement (LoA). Furthermore, the ability of the three devices to assist with correct treatment decisions was evaluated in Clarke Error Grids. RESULTS: Twenty patients were monitored for 1,203 min, with a median [interquartile range] of 61 [60-63] min per patient. The bias (98.9% LoA) were 0.1 (-7.9 to 7.9) breaths·min-1 for the acoustic monitor, -1.6 (-10.8 to 7.6) for the radar, and -1.9 (-13.1 to 9.2) for the IPG. The extent to which the monitors guided adequate or led to inadequate treatment decisions (determined by Clarke Error Grid analysis) differed significantly between the monitors (P = 0.011). Decisions were correct 96% of the time for acoustic, 95% of the time for radar, and 94% of the time for IPG monitoring devices. CONCLUSIONS: None of the studied devices (acoustic, IPG, and radar monitor) had LoA that were within our predefined (based on clinical judgement) limits of ± 2 breaths·min-1. The acoustic breath sound monitor predicted the correct treatment more often than the IPG and the radar device.

A Novel Non-contact Heart Rate Monitor Using Impulse-Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR-UWB) Radar Technology.

We discovered that impulse-radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) radar could recognize cardiac motions in a non-contact fashion. Therefore, we measured the heart rate (HR) and rhythms using an IR-UWB radar sensor and evaluated the validity and reliability of the measurements in comparison to electrocardiography. The heart beats were measured in 6 healthy volunteers (18 samples) with normal sinus rhythm (NSR) and 16 patients (36 samples) with atrial fibrillation (AF) using both an IR-UWB radar sensor and electrocardiography simultaneously. The participants hold their breath for 20 seconds during the data acquisition. In subjects with NSR, there was excellent agreement of HR (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] 0.856), average R-R interval (ICC 0.997) and individual R-R intervals between the two methods (ICC 0.803). In subjects with AF, HR (ICC 0.871) and average R-R interval (ICC 0.925) from the radar sensor also agreed well with those from electrocardiography, though there was a small disagreement in the individual R-R intervals between the two methods (ICC 0.697). The rhythms computed by the signal-processing algorithm showed good agreement between the two methods (Cohen's Kappa 0.922). The IR-UWB radar sensor is precise and accurate for assessing HR and rhythms in a non-contact fashion.

Systolic Time Interval Estimation Using Continuous Wave Radar With On-Body Antennas.

The estimation of systolic time intervals (STIs) is done using continuous wave (CW) radar at 2.45 GHz with an on-body antenna. MOTIVATION: In the state of the art, typically bioimpedance, heart sounds and/or ultrasound are used to measure STIs. All three methods suffer from insufficient accuracy of STI estimation due to various reasons. CW radar is investigated for its ability to overcome the deficiencies in the state of the art. METHODS: Ten healthy male subjects aged 25-45 were asked to lie down at a 30 incline. Recordings of 60 s were taken without breathing and with paced breathing. Heart sounds, electrocardiogram, respiration, and impedance cardiogram were measured simultaneously as reference. The radar antennas were placed at two positions on the chest. The antennas were placed directly on the body as well as with cotton textile in between. The beat to beat STIs have been determined from the reference signals as well as CW radar signals. RESULTS: The results indicate that CW radar can be used to estimate STIs in ambulatory monitoring. SIGNIFICANCE: The results pave way to a potentially more compact method of estimating STIs, which can be integrated into a wearable device.

Detectability of Breast Tumor by a Hand-held Impulse-Radar Detector: Performance Evaluation and Pilot Clinical Study.

In this report, a hand-held impulse-radar breast cancer detector is presented and the detectability of malignant breast tumors is demonstrated in the clinical test at Hiroshima University Hospital, Hiroshima, Japan. The core functional parts of the detector consist of 65-nm technology complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits covering the ultrawideband width from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz, which enable the generation and transmission of Gaussian monocycle pulse (GMP) with the pulse width of 160 ps and single port eight throw (SP8T) switching matrices for controlling the combination of 4 × 4 cross-shaped dome antenna array. The detector is designed to be placed on the breast with the patient in the supine position. The detectability of malignant tumors is confirmed in excised breast tissues after total mastectomy surgery. The three-dimensional positions of the tumors in the imaging results are consistent with the results of histopathology analysis. The clinical tests are conducted by a clinical doctor for five patients at the hospital. The malignant tumors include invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). The final confocal imaging results are consistent with those of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), demonstrating the feasibility of the hand-held impulse-radar detector for malignant breast tumors.

The Contactless Vital Sensing System Precisely Reflects R-R Interval in Electrocardiograms of Healthy Subjects.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the present study was to investigate the validity of the contactless vital sensing system that we previously developed. METHODS: A total of 111 healthy Japanese subjects were recruited from the University of Occupational and Environmental Health and the Panasonic Corporation AVC Networks Company. All subjects underwent an evaluation using the contactless vital sensing system and electrocardiography (ECG). We compared the R-R interval obtained using the new contactless sensing system to that obtained using ECG. RESULTS: A very strong correlation was observed between the instruments. CONCLUSIONS: This result confirms the validity of the new contactless sensing system in evaluating healthy subjects.

Compound Radar Approach for Breast Imaging.

Multistatic radar apertures record scattering at a number of receivers when the target is illuminated by a single transmitter, providing more scattering information than its monostatic counterpart per transmission angle. This paper considers the well-known problem of detecting tumor targets within breast phantoms using multistatic radar. To accurately image potentially cancerous targets size within the breast, a significant number of multistatic channels are required in order to adequately calibrate-out unwanted skin reflections, increase the immunity to clutter, and increase the dynamic range of a breast radar imaging system. However, increasing the density of antennas within a physical array is inevitably limited by the geometry of the antenna elements designed to operate with biological tissues at microwave frequencies. A novel compound imaging approach is presented to overcome these physical constraints and improve the imaging capabilities of a multistatic radar imaging modality for breast scanning applications. The number of transmit-receive (TX-RX) paths available for imaging are increased by performing a number of breast scans with varying array positions. A skin calibration method is presented to reduce the influence of skin reflections from each channel. Calibrated signals are applied to receive a beamforming method, compounding the data from each scan to produce a microwave radar breast profile. The proposed imaging method is evaluated with experimental data obtained from constructed phantoms of varying complexity, skin contour asymmetries, and challenging tumor positions and sizes. For each imaging scenario outlined in this study, the proposed compound imaging technique improves skin calibration, clearly detects small targets, and substantially reduces the level of undesirable clutter within the profile.

PCA-based artifact removal algorithm for stroke detection using UWB radar imaging.

Stroke patients should be dispatched at the highest level of care available in the shortest time. In this context, a transportable system in specialized ambulances, able to evaluate the presence of an acute brain lesion in a short time interval (i.e., few minutes), could shorten delay of treatment. UWB radar imaging is an emerging diagnostic branch that has great potential for the implementation of a transportable and low-cost device. Transportability, low cost and short response time pose challenges to the signal processing algorithms of the backscattered signals as they should guarantee good performance with a reasonably low number of antennas and low computational complexity, tightly related to the response time of the device. The paper shows that a PCA-based preprocessing algorithm can: (1) achieve good performance already with a computationally simple beamforming algorithm; (2) outperform state-of-the-art preprocessing algorithms; (3) enable a further improvement in the performance (and/or decrease in the number of antennas) by using a multistatic approach with just a modest increase in computational complexity. This is an important result toward the implementation of such a diagnostic device that could play an important role in emergency scenario.

Optimization of Planar Monopole Wideband Antenna for Wireless Communication System.

In this paper, a new compact wideband monopole antenna is presented for wireless communication applications. This antenna comprises of a new radiating patch, a new arc-shaped strip, microstrip feed line, and a notched ground plane. The proposed radiating patch is combined with a rectangular and semi-circular patch and is integrated with a partial ground plane to provide a wide impedance bandwidth. The new arc-shaped strip between the radiating patch and microstrip feed line creates an extra surface on the patch, which helps further widen the bandwidth. Inserting one step notch on the ground plane further enhances the bandwidth. The antenna has a compact size of 16×20×1.6mm3. The measured result indicated that the antenna achieves a 127% bandwidth at VSWR≤2, ranging from 4.9GHz to 22.1GHz. Stable radiation patterns with acceptable gain are achieved. Also, a measured bandwidth of 107.7% at VSWR≤1.5 (5.1-17GHz) is obtained, which is suitable for UWB outdoor propagation. This antenna is compatible with a good number of wireless standards, including UWB band, Wimax 5.4 GHz band, MVDDS (12.2-12.7GHz), and close range radar and satellite communication in the X-band (8-12GHz), and Ku band (12-18GHz).

Detection and Identification of Multiple Stationary Human Targets Via Bio-Radar Based on the Cross-Correlation Method.

Ultra-wideband (UWB) radar has been widely used for detecting human physiological signals (respiration, movement, etc.) in the fields of rescue, security, and medicine owing to its high penetrability and range resolution. In these applications, especially in rescue after disaster (earthquake, collapse, mine accident, etc.), the presence, number, and location of the trapped victims to be detected and rescued are the key issues of concern. Ample research has been done on the first issue, whereas the identification and localization of multi-targets remains a challenge. False positive and negative identification results are two common problems associated with the detection of multiple stationary human targets. This is mainly because the energy of the signal reflected from the target close to the receiving antenna is considerably stronger than those of the targets at further range, often leading to missing or false recognition if the identification method is based on the energy of the respiratory signal. Therefore, a novel method based on cross-correlation is proposed in this paper that is based on the relativity and periodicity of the signals, rather than on the energy. The validity of this method is confirmed through experiments using different scenarios; the results indicate a discernible improvement in the detection precision and identification of the multiple stationary targets.