Establishment of non-contact vital-sign detection technology for human body using array antenna

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H04360
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Communication/Network engineering
• Research Institution: Iwate University
• Principal Investigator: Honma Naoki 岩手大学, 理工学部, 教授 (70500718)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 西森 健太郎 新潟大学, 自然科学系, 研究教授 (90500611) ; 竹村 暢康 日本工業大学, 基幹工学部, 准教授 (90747023)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: MIMO / センシング

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we investigated the human sensing technology based on MIMO system. The results of this study are mainly divided into two categories: (A) improvement of the accuracy of heart rate observation and (B) estimation of human position and status. As for (A), the conventional method of heart rate estimation using microwaves has a problem in its accuracy. In this study, we established a heart rate estimation technique with higher accuracy and stability than the conventional method by introducing a spatio-temporal signal processing technique. For (B), the analysis of the propagation channel characteristics obtained by the MIMO system has yielded a new method to estimate human status and behavior by extracting human positions and Doppler component distribution from the angular and time-varying characteristics in the reflected waves from the human body.

Free Research Field

無線通信工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

要介護者の見守り手段として用いられてきたカメラ等の光学的手段とは異なり，プライバシー保護に有効であり，死角や暗所でも検出が可能な非接触マイクロ波バイタルサイン検出技術を確立した．本手法によればアレーアンテナを用いることで，少ない周波数資源で高感度なヒトセンシングを実現できる．新たな心拍推定手法やヒトの状態・行動推定について新たな知見が得られ，学術的に意義のある成果が得られている．また，本技術実用化の暁には介護負担の軽減や循環器系発作の迅速な検知など医療・福祉分野に資することが期待される．