Challenges and Potential Solutions of Psychophysiological State Monitoring with Bioradar Technology

Abstract

Psychophysiological state monitoring provides a promising way to detect stress and accurately assess wellbeing. The purpose of the present work was to investigate the advantages of utilizing a new unobtrusive multi-transceiver system on the accuracy of remote psychophysiological state monitoring by means of a bioradar technique. The technique was tested in laboratory conditions with the participation of 35 practically healthy volunteers, who were asked to perform arithmetic and physical workload tests imitating different types of stressors. Information about any variation in vital signs, registered by a bioradar with two transceivers, was used to detect mental or physical stress. Processing of the experimental results showed that the designed two-channel bioradar can be used as a simple and relatively easy approach to implement a non-contact method for stress monitoring. However, individual specificity of physiological responses to mental and physical workloads makes the creation of a universal stress-detector classifier that is suitable for people with different levels of stress tolerance a challenging task. For non-athletes, the proposed method allows classification of calm state/mental workload and calm state/physical workload with an accuracy of 89% and 83% , respectively, without the usage of any additional a priori information on the subject.

Microwave-Enabled Wearables: Underpinning Technologies, Integration Platforms, and Next-Generation Roadmap

“…It is also possible to monitor bedridden patients in a critical state and possibly help in a diagnosis. Applications in psychology are also feasible, such as the measurement of the stress response [137], or even performing emotion recognition [138].…”

Different Antenna Designs for Non-Contact Vital Signs Measurement: A Review

“…In the same framework of commercial products, a K-LC5 transceiver from RFbeam Microwave GmbH (St. Gallen, Switzerland) [37], operating with 24 GHz carrier, was used in [38] to evaluate if bio-radar technology can be used to access the psychophysiological state of 35 healthy volunteers. In this sense, vital signs were acquired and classified using data-mining techniques and thus determine if there is any mental or physical stress among the subjects.…”

Introduction to Special Issue on “Electromagnetic Technologies for Medical Diagnostics: Fundamental Issues, Clinical Applications and Perspectives”

“…A potential therapy application based on microwave technology is also considered in [12], which presents a microwave-based snare inserted into an endoscope, with promising results in simulations and heating experiments of the prototype device. Another interesting application of microwaves in medical diagnostics is presented in [13], which proposes radar technology as means of detecting stress and assessing well-being in a trial with thirty-five healthy volunteers.…”