A chest wearable radar platform

Background

Continuous monitoring of vital signs, such as heart rate and respiratory waveforms, is essential for managing chronic cardiopulmonary conditions and tracking physical performance, yet existing methodologies face significant limitations. Traditional electrode-based chest monitors and hospital-grade electrocardiogram (ECG) systems require direct skin contact, making them uncomfortable for long-term wear, restrictive to movement, and highly susceptible to signal degradation from sweat and motion artifacts. Meanwhile, commercial wrist-based wearables lack the central physiological placement necessary for accurate respiratory monitoring and continuous cardiac waveform extraction. Although contactless radar technology has emerged as a potential alternative to eliminate skin-contact issues, current single-frequency radar systems struggle to differentiate the minute amplitudes of cardiovascular signals from dominant respiratory movements, environmental noise, and multipath interference. Furthermore, attempts to overcome these radar limitations by integrating auxiliary sensors like cameras or utilizing computationally intensive signal processing algorithms often introduce privacy concerns, increase system bulk, and hinder real-time data analysis, leaving a critical need for more robust, non-obtrusive monitoring solutions.

Description of the invention

This technology is a comfortable chest belt that uses miniature radar sensors to continuously track heart and breathing rates without touching the skin. It captures accurate, medical-grade vital signs in real time, even during physical activity, avoiding the discomfort and sweat issues of traditional monitors.

Advantages

The invention is a chest-wearable, contactless vital sign monitoring platform that utilizes Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave MIMO radar technology operating simultaneously at two non-overlapping frequency bands: 2.45 GHz for deep tissue penetration and 60 GHz for high-resolution tracking. The system employs a central processing unit to synchronize and multiplex the dual-band radar data in real-time, accurately extracting breathing rates, heart rates, and ECG-grade heartbeat. This approach is highly novel compared to existing technologies because the dual-frequency, near-field configuration inherently minimizes environmental noise, multipath effects, and sweat or movement artifacts. It enables robust, continuous, and real-time differentiation of cardiac and respiratory signals in a compact, non-intrusive wearable format without the bulk or physical restrictions of traditional monitoring systems.

Potential applications

• Clinical and Ambulatory Medical Monitoring
• Sports and High-Performance Fitness Tracking
• Sleep Apnea and Sleep Quality Diagnostics
• Occupational Health and Tactical Monitoring
• Remote Patient Monitoring and Telehealth