Smart radar device warns of serious heart issues

Dr. George Shaker has huge hopes for a small radar device he developed with a team of researchers at the University of Waterloo.

An engineer who has pursued the possibilities of radio waves for more than 20 years, Shaker envisions the installation of the silent, unobtrusive system almost everywhere people sit to help detect heart problems before they become life-threatening.

"Imagine a future where your car, your couch and even your office chair don't just support your body – they also actively protect your health by serving as early warning systems," he said. "If widely adopted, this technology has enormous potential to save lives."

At the core of the system is what Shaker – an adjunct associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Waterloo – describes as a “super-sensitive motion detector” capable of registering the small chest movements created by a beating heart.

A cellphone-sized box attached behind a seat emits radar waves that invisibly fan out, then bounce back from the body of the person sitting in it. In the process, they register barely perceptible chest movements for analysis by a sophisticated computer algorithm aided by artificial intelligence (AI).

Dr. Shaker works on his radar device in his lab at the University of Waterloo. (University of Waterloo)

“Unlike wearable devices that you have to remember to charge and put on, radar works continuously in the background,” Shaker said. “It can monitor heart activity, stress, fatigue and potential cardiac risks whether you’re driving, watching TV or sitting at your desk.”

Data collected by the device is converted into a heartbeat profile, or signature – typically two peaks followed by a valley for a healthy heart – and deviations from normal are used to flag potential problems for further examination.

Of particular interest is a measure known as corrected QTc interval, basically the time it takes a heart to reset between beats. If the interval is too long, it indicates an elevated risk of serious cardiac events, including heart attacks.

“Healthy people have a specific heartbeat signature,” said Shaker. “But in people with prolonged QTc, this pattern changes. By picking up on this shift, our system can act as an early warning tool for cardiac risks.”

Results are produced in just a few minutes, with accuracy comparable to a medical-grade electrocardiogram (ECG). The system can also monitor heart-rate variability (HRV), another key indicator of heart health, with millisecond precision.

Dr. Shaker's experimental setup with the seat radar installed behind the chair and an interference test setup in the presence of wall radar. (University of Waterloo)

The “secret sauce” created by the research team – which includes experts across several engineering disciplines and public health at Waterloo, as well as a mathematician from the National Aerospace University in Ukraine – consists of specialized hardware and a custom algorithm that filters out “noise” from breathing and other body movements to extract clear heart signals.

Researchers are now working on better integrating AI to make the system even more predictive, and plan to expand testing on subjects with a range of cardiovascular conditions. Efforts to commercialize the technology are ongoing.

“Radar sensors preserve privacy and are small, scalable and cost-efficient,” said Shaker. “As production ramps up, this could become a standard feature in smart homes and vehicles, as commonplace as seatbelts or airbag sensors.”

The study, Smart furniture using radar technology for cardiac health monitoring, recently appeared in Nature Scientific Reports.