Non-Contact Respiratory and Heart Rate Detection Using IR-UWB Radars Under Random Body Activity

In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to the daily detection of vital signs. Using impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) radars to detect vital signs (respiratory rate and heart rate) has become a research hotspot. In healthcare, a long-term continual monitoring of vital signs is required. But most research works on vital signs detection assume that the subjects always remain stationary, however the random activity of human body is inevitable for a long period of monitoring. This paper proposes a new simple and effective algorithm for vital signs detection using only one IR-UWB radar under random activity of human body, consisting of region of interest detection, respiratory signal extraction, and motion detection. And the vital signs detection is finally realized when the subjects sit at desks and do daily work accompanied with common random body activities, e.g., shaking body, using phones, turning head. The experimental results show that the motion detection can effectively improve the detection accuracy of respiratory rate and heart rate.