Heartbeat Signal Measurement using UWB Impulse Radar

Abstract

Remote sensing of vital signals, including respiration and heartbeat signals, is an essential application of ultra-wideband impulse (UWB) radar. UWB radar measures the vital signal by a small motion of the thorax in the breathing and cardiac activities. The motion caused by cardiac activity is small compared to the motion of respiration and challenging to be detected in a real-life application. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for the enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the heartbeat signal. The proposed algorithm analyzes the correlation of the multichannel vital signals for taking the common harmonic component corresponding to the heartbeat signal. Thus, the algorithm could improve the SNR of the heartbeat signal over the referenced methods such as continuous wavelet transform and singular spectral analysis.