SEMINAR: Non-Contact Vital Sign Detection and Monitoring

Abstract:

The vital sign detection based on microwave Doppler radar has the capability of measuring vital sign signals, such as heartbeat and respiration, without directly attaching electrodes to the skin, and can measure the vital sign at a distance or even through an obstacle. However, for this non-contact vital sign detection approach, phase noise of the received signal can have serious adverse effects on the detection capability and accuracy since the chest displacement caused by breathing and heart beating, especially heart beating, is small and the vital sign is contained in the phase of microwave signals. We have developed a dual-carrier vital sign detection and monitoring technology that is capable of suppressing the residual phase noise and transmission path noise. The system can automatically adapt to a new environment and adjust the transmitted signals to suppress the noise. The experimental results demonstrate that the heartbeat detection distance of our vital sign detection system is more than doubled comparing with a system without the proposed noise suppression scheme. In addition, we have investigated using the non-contact system for measuring cardiac waveforms and for extracting relevant parameters that may reflect health conditions of the human heart.

Biography:

Dr. Ying Zhang is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she is also the founder and director of the Sensors and Intelligent Systems Laboratory. Dr. Zhang’s research interests include Sensors and Smart Wireless Sensing Systems; Intelligent Monitoring and Diagnostic Systems; Data Fusion and Information Extraction; Complex Systems Analysis and Optimization; Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) and Smart Materials and Structures.

Dr. Zhang received her BS degree from Tongji University in Materials Science and Engineering. She received a MS degree from University of Illinois at Chicago in Materials Engineering and a MS degree from University of Massachusetts Lowell in Electrical Engineering in 2001 and 2002, respectively. She received her PhD degree from University of California, Berkeley in Systems Engineering in 2006. Dr. Zhang is a Licensed Professional Engineer and is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Sensors Journal. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, TechConnect Defense Innovation Award, and TechConnect National Innovation Award.