Vital signs monitoring of multiple people using a FMCW millimeter-wave sensor

In this paper, we describe non-contact monitoring of vital signs of multiple people using a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) sensor. We use the inherent range-gating ability of the FMCW waveforms and multiple receive channels to separate objects in range-azimuth plane. We sub-sequently utilize the fact that body surface movements due to physiological motions modulates the phase of the received radar signal and can be further processed to extract the breathing and heart-rate. Range-gating and beamforming techniques allow the signal of interest to be isolated from surrounding clutter, however several challenges such as random body movements need to be addressed before radar-based non-contact measurements can be deployed in real-world settings.