Accuracy Enhancement of Doppler Radar-Based Heartbeat Rate Detection Using Chest-Wall Acceleration

The theoretical and experimental study of a new noncontact heartbeat signal processing technique using a continuous-wave 2.4-GHz Doppler radar is presented in this paper. This system can detect the human heartbeat rate at 1m away from the human body. Experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed approach. The recorded data from ten healthy human subjects show an average heartbeat rate detection accuracy of more than 95% when compared with reference electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings. A theoretical analysis is also provided to support the proposed method and demonstrate that by exploiting the second derivative of the received signal which corresponds to the chest wall acceleration, the detection rate can be significantly increased. The proposed technique is robust and simple, and measurement results indicate its potential for being used for the development of reliable non-contact heartbeat rate monitoring systems.