Non-contact displacement estimation using Doppler radar

Non-contact Doppler radar has been used extensively for detection of physiological motion. Most of the results published to date have been focused on estimation of the physiological rates, such as respiratory rate and heart rate, with CW and modulated waveforms in various settings. Accurate assessment of chest displacement may take this type of monitoring to the new level, by enabling the estimation of associated cardiopulmonary volumes, and possibly pulse pressure. To obtain absolute chest displacement with highest precision, full nonlinear phase demodulation of the quadrature radar outputs must be performed. The accuracy of this type of demodulation is limited by the drifting received RF power, varying dc offset, and channel quadrature imbalance. In this paper we demonstrate that if relatively large motion is used to calibrate the system, smaller motion displacement may be acquired with the accuracy on the order of 30 μm.