Authors' reply to comments by Takuya Sakamoto, Shouhei Kidera, and Toru Sato on "seabed algorithm and comments on 'modeling and migration of 2-D georadar data: A stationary phase approach"

Copyright © 2008 IEEES. A. Greenhalgh and L. Maresco

Noncontact Vital Signs Detection

Human health condition can be accessed by measurement of vital signs, i.e., respiratory rate (RR), heart rate (HR), blood oxygen level, temperature and blood pressure. Due to drawbacks of contact sensors in measurement, non-contact sensors such as imaging photoplethysmogram (IPPG) and Doppler radar system have been proposed for cardiorespiratory rates detection by researchers.The UWB pulse Doppler radars provide high resolution range-time-frequency information. It is bestowed with advantages of low transmitted power, through-wall capabilities, and high resolution in localization. However, the poor signal to noise ratio (SNR) makes it challenging for UWB radar systems to accurately detect the heartbeat of a subject. To solve the problem, phased-methods have been proposed to extract the phase variations in the reflected pulses modulated by human tiny thorax motions. Advance signal processing method, i.e., state space method, can not only be used to enhance SNR of human vital signs detection, but also enable the micro-Doppler trajectories extraction of walking subject from UWB radar data.Stepped Frequency Continuous Wave (SFCW) radar is an alternative technique useful to remotely monitor human subject activities. Compared with UWB pulse radar, it relieves the stress on requirement of high sampling rate analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and possesses higher signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) in vital signs detection. However, conventional SFCW radar suffers from long data acquisition time to step over many frequencies. To solve this problem, multi-channel SFCW radar has been proposed to step through different frequency bandwidths simultaneously. Compressed sensing (CS) can further reduce the data acquisition time by randomly stepping through 20% of the original frequency steps.In this work, SFCW system is implemented with low cost, off-the-shelf surface mount components to make the radar sensors portable. Experimental results collected from both pulse and SFCW radar systems have been validated with commercial contact sensors and satisfactory results are shown

非侵襲内部UWBレーダのためのRPM法とFDTD法を併用した誘電率分布推定法

本論文はUWB(Ultra-Wideband)レーダを用いて，非破壊検査や非侵襲生体内部計測を可能とする内部画像化技術の研究成果をまとめたものである．従来，道路内部の劣化状況を調査する非破壊検査や乳癌細胞検知等の非侵襲による生体内部の画像化技術として，X線マンモグラフィ，超音波診断等がある．しかし，X線マンモグラフィは放射線を用いるため被験者の被爆の危険性，超音波診断は反射エコー強度のみの情報しか得られないため，癌細胞等の検知が難しいことが問題となっている．低周波領域のマイクロ波UWB信号は，は高い距離分解能と誘電体透過性に優れており，対象の誘電率や導電率の電磁気的特性を定量的に抽出できることから，同信号を用いた内部画像化技術は既存技術の問題を解決する新たな手法として注目されている．同レーダを用いた誘電体内部画像化手法にはRPM(Range Points Migration)法の原理を拡張した高精度内部目標画像化手法が提案されている．同手法はRPM法による誘電体境界推定点と同法線ベクトルから幾何光学近似により誘電体内部の伝搬経路を決定することで，波長限界を超えた精度を保持する．しかし，同手法は画像化精度が誘電率依存性を有するため誘電率推定法と併用する必要がある．一般的な誘電率推定法には領域積分方程式を用いた数値解析による手法がある．しかし，同手法はBorn近似により誘電率と真空のコントラストが大きい場合には，収束が困難になり，計算時間も膨大となる問題もある．上記問題を改善するため，本稿では，RPM法の誘電体境界推定点群とレイトレーシング及びFDTD(Finite Difference Time Domain)法を用いた誘電率分布推定法を提案する．本手法では，均質誘電媒質に対する高精度誘電率推定法を初期値に設定し，誘電率分布を基底関数の線形混合で表現することで次元数を減らし，収束速度を速める．多次元最適化問題に対して効率的に最適解に到達可能な粒子群最適化(PSO:Particle Swarm Optimization)法を導入する．順問題解析には，始めにレイトレーシングを導入し，最適解に近付けた後，FDTD法に切り替えることで，効率的かつ高精度な誘電率推定を目指す．本手法の有効性を数値計算により評価する．電気通信大学201

Design and Implementation of a Stepped Frequency Continuous Wave Radar System for Biomedical Applications

There is a need to detect vital signs of human (e.g., the respiration and heart-beat rate) with noncontact method in a number of applications such as search and rescue operation (e.g. earthquakes, fire), health monitoring of the elderly, performance monitoring of athletes Ultra-wideband radar system can be utilized for noncontact vital signs monitoring and tracking of various human activities of more than one subject. Therefore, a stepped-frequency continuous wave radar (SFCW) system with wideband performance is designed and implemented for Vital signs detection and fall events monitoring. The design of the SFCW radar system is firstly developed using off-the-shelf discrete components. Later, the system is implemented using surface mount components to make it portable with low cost. The measurement result is proved to be accurate for both heart rate and respiration rate detection within ±5% when compared with contact measurements. Furthermore, an electromagnetic model has been developed using a multi-layer dielectric model of the human subject to validate the experimental results. The agreement between measured and simulated results is good for distances up to 2 m and at various subjects’ orientations with respect to the radar, even in the presence of more than one subject. The compressive sensing (CS) technique is utilized to reduce the size of the acquired data to levels significantly below the Nyquist threshold. In our demonstration, we use phase information contained in the obtained complex high-resolution range profile (HRRP) to derive the motion characteristics of the human. The obtained data has been successfully utilized for non-contact walk, fall and limping detection and healthcare monitoring. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated using measured results

Radar Technology

In this book “Radar Technology”, the chapters are divided into four main topic areas: Topic area 1: “Radar Systems” consists of chapters which treat whole radar systems, environment and target functional chain. Topic area 2: “Radar Applications” shows various applications of radar systems, including meteorological radars, ground penetrating radars and glaciology. Topic area 3: “Radar Functional Chain and Signal Processing” describes several aspects of the radar signal processing. From parameter extraction, target detection over tracking and classification technologies. Topic area 4: “Radar Subsystems and Components” consists of design technology of radar subsystem components like antenna design or waveform design

Development and Evaluation of a Multistatic Ultrawideband Random Noise Radar

This research studies the AFIT noise network (NoNET) radar node design and the feasibility in processing the bistatic channel information of a cluster of widely distributed noise radar nodes. A system characterization is used to predict theoretical localization performance metrics. Design and integration of a distributed and central signal and data processing architecture enables the Matlab®-driven signal data acquisition, digital processing and multi-sensor image fusion. Experimental evaluation of the monostatic localization performance reveals its range measurement error standard deviation is 4.8 cm with a range resolution of 87.2(±5.9) cm. The 16-channel multistatic solution results in a 2-dimensional localization error of 7.7(±3.1) cm and a comparative analysis is performed against the netted monostatic solution. Results show that active sensing with a low probability of intercept (LPI) multistatic radar, like the NoNET, is capable of producing sub-meter accuracy and near meter-resolution imagery

UWB Pulse Radar for Human Imaging and Doppler Detection Applications

We were motivated to develop new technologies capable of identifying human life through walls. Our goal is to pinpoint multiple people at a time, which could pay dividends during military operations, disaster rescue efforts, or assisted-living. Such system requires the combination of two features in one platform: seeing-through wall localization and vital signs Doppler detection. Ultra-wideband (UWB) radar technology has been used due to its distinct advantages, such as ultra-low power, fine imaging resolution, good penetrating through wall characteristics, and high performance in noisy environment. Not only being widely used in imaging systems and ground penetrating detection, UWB radar also targets Doppler sensing, precise positioning and tracking, communications and measurement, and etc. A robust UWB pulse radar prototype has been developed and is presented here. The UWB pulse radar prototype integrates seeing-through imaging and Doppler detection features in one platform. Many challenges existing in implementing such a radar have been addressed extensively in this dissertation. Two Vivaldi antenna arrays have been designed and fabricated to cover 1.5-4.5 GHz and 1.5-10 GHz, respectively. A carrier-based pulse radar transceiver has been implemented to achieve a high dynamic range of 65dB. A 100 GSPS data acquisition module is prototyped using the off-the-shelf field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) based on a low cost solution: equivalent time sampling scheme. Ptolemy and transient simulation tools are used to accurately emulate the linear and nonlinear components in the comprehensive simulation platform, incorporated with electromagnetic theory to account for through wall effect and radar scattering. Imaging and Doppler detection examples have been given to demonstrate that such a “Biometrics-at-a-glance” would have a great impact on the security, rescuing, and biomedical applications in the future

Localization Capability of Cooperative Anti-Intruder Radar Systems

System aspects of an anti-intruder multistatic radar based on impulse radio ultrawideband (UWB) technology are addressed. The investigated system is composed of one transmitting node and at least three receiving nodes, positioned in the surveillance area with the aim of detecting and locating a human intruder (target) that moves inside the area. Such systems, referred to also as UWB radar sensor networks, must satisfy severe power constraints worldwide imposed by, for example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and by the European Commission (EC) power spectral density masks. A single transmitter-receiver pair (bistatic radar) is considered at first. Given the available transmitted power and the capability of the receiving node to resolve the UWB pulses in the time domain, the surveillance area regions where the target is detectable, and those where it is not, are obtained. Moreover, the range estimation error for the transmitter-receiver pair is discussed. By employing this analysis, a multistatic system is then considered, composed of one transmitter and three or four cooperating receivers. For this multistatic system, the impact of the nodes location on area coverage, necessary transmitted power and localization uncertainty is studied, assuming a circular surveillance area. It is highlighted how area coverage and transmitted power, on one side, and localization uncertainty, on the other side, require opposite criteria of nodes placement. Consequently, the need for a system compromising between these factors is shown. Finally, a simple and effective criterion for placing the transmitter and the receivers is drawn

Multiple moving target detection with ultra wideband radar using super-resolution algorithms

The improvements in microwave electronics opened the way to build microwave components such as low noise amplifiers, samplers and pulse generators that are broadband. As these building blocks are being developed, new applications become subject of research. Ultra wideband radar is one of these subjects. Major applications of ultra wideband radars are behind the wall imaging, biomedical imaging and buried land mine detection. In this study we aimed to locate multiple scatterers that are moving. Even though there are many scatterers in an environment, detection of moving targets is possible using differences of successive radar snapshots. This is generally the case when behind the wall human targets are to be detected. We investigated the effectiveness of various types Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) algorithms on the data acquired by our ultra wideband radar prototype. In ideal computer simulations, Time Reversal MUSIC (TRM) algorithm provides successful estimations of both directions and distances of multiple targets. However in practice where non-ideal effects are existent, the performance of TRM algorithm is estimating the target distances degrades. On the other hand, Delay Estimation MUSIC algorithm provides better estimates for the distances of the targets since it is less sensitive to phase noise. Combining the output of TRM algorithm for target directions and the output of Delay Estimation MUSIC method for target distances resulted in successful localization of targets. Experiments are performed using two moving targets in order to test the effectiveness the proposed processing scheme. The problem of detection ambiguities is also considered and several methods to resolve actual targets are presented