Bachelor and Master Theses

Motivation

Measuring vital signs like heart rate and breathing rate is crucial for monitoring of patients who suffer from a disease like sleep apnea or other breath or cardiovascular-related deficiencies. While monitoring is mostly performed through contacting sensors like pulse oximeters, this thesis aims to investigate remote vital sign detection through Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar.

FMCW is a type of radar modulation in which a continuous electromagnetic radar signal is generated whose frequency is varied over time. FMCW radar is very sensitive to movement, e.g., of the chest, penetrates solid objects, and from the reflected signal even the velocity of a target can be determined.

For this thesis, an FMCW evaluation kit is available for data acquisition. Signal processing algorithms are then to be applied to extract the vital signs from the received radar signals.

Tasks

In this thesis, the student will:

-       Get familiar with Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar technology and the AWR1443BOOST radar development board from Texas Instruments

-       Apply adequate signal-processing algorithms to extract vital signs (breathing and/or heart rate) from the received radar signals

-       Evaluate the capabilities and limitations of the implemented system

Literature

M. Alizadeh, G. Shaker, J. C. M. D. Almeida, P. P. Morita, and S. Safavi-Naeini, “Remote Monitoring of Human Vital Signs Using mm-Wave FMCW Radar,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 54958–54968, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2912956.

Basic programming skills. Experience with setting up hardware systems is beneficial but not a requirement.