Title: Experimental study in breath detection and human target ranging in the presence of obstacles using ultra-wideband signals

Authors: Valerio Casadei; Nicola Nanna; Davide Dardari

Addresses: WiLAB, Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica (DEIS), University of Bologna, Via Venezia 52, 47521 Cesena (FC), Italy. ' WiLAB, Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica (DEIS), University of Bologna, Via Venezia 52, 47521 Cesena (FC), Italy. ' WiLAB, Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica (DEIS), University of Bologna, Via Venezia 52, 47521 Cesena (FC), Italy

Abstract: The problem of detecting and localising human breath activities in the presence of obstacles using an ultra-wideband radar is addressed in this paper. An extensive measurement campaign performed in realistic environments is presented. A breath activity generalised likelihood ratio detector as well as human distance and breath rate estimators are proposed based on the definition of a novel time-variant channel response model. The robustness of the detector and the ranging accuracy are investigated using experimental data showing that a hidden person can be detected and localised in many of the scenarios considered.

Keywords: breath detection; UWB radar; ultra wideband; human target ranging; breath localisation; channel response models; obstacles; hidden bodies; buried bodies; human breathing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJUWBCS.2011.044603

International Journal of Ultra Wideband Communications and Systems, 2011 Vol.2 No.2, pp.116 - 123

Published online: 31 Mar 2015 *

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