Photonic radar for contactless vital sign detection

Abstract

Vital sign detection is used across ubiquitous scenarios in medical and health settings, and contact and wearable sensors have been widely deployed. However, they are unsuitable for patients with burn wounds or infants with insufficient areas for attachment. Contactless detection can be achieved using camera imaging, but it is susceptible to ambient light conditions and has privacy concerns. Here we report a photonic radar for non-contact vital sign detection to overcome these challenges. This photonic radar can achieve millimetre-level range resolution based on synthesized radar signals with a bandwidth of up to 30 GHz. The high resolution of the radar system enables accurate respiratory detection from breathing simulators and a cane toad as a human proxy. Moreover, we demonstrate that the optical signals generated from the proposed system can enable vital sign detection based on light detection and ranging (LiDAR). This demonstration reveals the potential of a sensor-fusion architecture that can combine the complementary features of radar and LiDAR to achieve improved sensing accuracy and system resilience. The work provides a technical basis for contactless and high-resolution vital sign detection to meet the increasing demands of future medical and healthcare applications.

Long-Range Entangled Quantum Noise Radar Over Order of Kilometer

“…• Engineering of the microwave entangled sources (based on the electro-optomechanics (EOM) [for review on optomechnics see Ref. [71]], superconducting or other platforms such as NV or SPDC) with 'increased bandwidth' as much as possible, because this plays a crucial role in the enhancement of the maximum detection range as well as the quantum range advantage; • Developing the photonics radar platform [72]- [74].…”

A new approach to contactless probing of vital signs

“…This hybrid configuration combines the strengths of both approaches, offering a potential solution for a noncontact vital-sign detection system that is both cost-effective and capable of high-resolution. 1 Radar systems employing radio frequency (RF) waves have the capability to non-invasively retrieve a patient's vital signs, thereby presenting a viable option for contactless monitoring. Nevertheless, conventional electronic radars exhibit limited bandwidth and diminished range resolution, thereby impeding their ability to differentiate between closely positioned targets and detect subtle human vital signs, such as respiration.…”

“…In summary, this methodology could potentially facilitate continuous surveillance of uncooperative targets, including those facing away or to the side, in contrast to the limitations of relying on a singular radar access point. [1][2][3][4][5][6]…”

“…Despite advancements in user experience, wearable sensors are not prescribed for individuals with burn wounds or skin irritations, as well as with limited surface area specially for infants. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Non-contact methods utilizing optical sensors have been investigated, such as employing cameras to monitor specific areas of interest. Nevertheless, camera-based systems, such as infrared and conventional cameras, exhibit sensitivity to variations in skin color and lighting conditions.…”

Physics-Informed Masked Autoencoder for Active Sparse Imaging

“…It benefits significantly from ultrahigh detection sensitivity on a single-photon level and the ability to time-tag photon arrivals with nanoto-picosecond resolution. Recently, such technology and its derivatives have been deployed in remote sensing for millimeter to kilometer working distances [31][32][33][34][35][36][37] , with interesting applications in fluorescence Spectroscopy 38,39 , astronomy 40,41 , biomedical imaging of cancer and x-rays 42,43 , environmental imaging of photosynthesis and underwater scenes [44][45][46] , bio-metrics for reading heart beats 47,48 and more. In this work, we down-sample an image plane via a random physical mask on the scanning pattern (i.e., scanning only a fraction of pixels) and reconstruct the full image by using PI-MAE that takes both the photon-counting results and the scanning pattern.…”