System-on-a-Chip UWB Radar Sensor for Contactless Respiratory Monitoring: Technology and Applications - Ultra-Wideband and 60 GHz Communications for Biomedical Applications - page 67

System-on-a-Chip UWB Radar Sensor for
Contactless Respiratory Monitoring: Technology
and Applications

Domenico Zito and Domenico Pepe

Abstract Thanks to the extremely low level of emitted power, ultra-wideband
(UWB) technology is expected to be one of the most important technologies capable
of supporting both, the needs of contactless sensing and ultra low-power data commu-
nication, opening to interesting opportunities for implementing innovative sensors
applied to the continuous monitoring of vital parameters and their communication
within wireless body area networks.
In this frame, particularly relevant is the interest in radar sensors for contactless
respiratory rate monitoring. Such devices are expected to be the enabling technology
for a wide range of continuous bio-monitoring applications, ranging from sleep-
wake classifications of drivers in vehicles to respiratory disorder diagnoses (e.g.,
obstructive apneas) of infants and adults, from fatigue detection for fitness users to
health monitoring of patients in hospital and domestic environments. The contri-
bution expected from continuous-time contactless monitoring systems free of any
encumbrance will have a pivoting role in tackling respiratory chronic diseases and
gaining a better understanding of respiratory rate variability, especially in correlations
with other pathological (e.g., cardiovascular, obesity, diabetes, etc.), behavioral, and
environmental risk factors.
This chapter reports the key aspects of the research and development of the radar
technology carried out by our group. In detail, it focuses on the implementation
of a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) UWB pulse radar for respiratory rate monitoring in
nano-scale CMOS technology and its experimental tests in the operating scenarios.
Paragraph 1 reports an introduction to UWB pulse radar systems for contactless
monitoring of vital parameters. Section “SoC CMOS UWB Pulse Radar Sensor”
reports the SoC UWB pulse radar system for respiratory monitoring and its oper-
ating principle and building blocks. Section “Field Operational Tests” reports the
experimental results of the field operational tests, including the detection of the res-
piratory rate patterns of adults and infants. Finally, the conclusions are drawn in
section “Conclusions”.

D. Zito ( ) D. Pepe

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Cork,
Cork, Ireland
e-mail: [e-mail]
Tyndall National Institute, “Lee Maltings”, Dyke Parade,
Cork, Ireland

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