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Italian Forum of Ambient Assisted Living

ForItAAL 2017: Ambient Assisted Living pp 3–22Cite as

Radar Sensing of Vital Signs in Assisted Living Applications

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering ((LNEE,volume 540))

Abstract

In order to be accepted by users, one of the most important requirement for any assisted living technology is unobtrusiveness. This is particularly true when this technology is intended for continuous monitoring of vital signs, since traditional approaches require the subject to be tethered to measurement devices. The radar sensing is a very promising technology, enabling the measurement of vital signs at a distance, and thus meeting both requirements of unobtrusiveness and accuracy. In particular, impulse-radio ultra-wideband radar has attracted considerable attention in recent years thanks to many properties that make it useful for assisted living purposes. The aim of this paper is to investigate such radar technology for vital signs monitoring in assisted living scenarios. An algorithmic framework for the detection of respiration and heart rates during various activities of daily living is presented, including a method for compensation of movements of both the monitored subject and a second person present in the same environment (e.g., family member, caregiver, etc.). Experiments are carried out in various conditions that can be frequently encountered in assisted living scenarios. The reported results show that vital signs can be detected also while carrying out ADLs, with accuracy varying according to the level of movements and kind of involved body’s parts and postures.

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Acknowledgements

This work was carried out within the project “ACTIVE AGEING AT HOME” funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, within the National Operational Programme for “Research and Competitiveness” 2007–2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems, Lecce, Italy

    Giovanni Diraco, Alessandro Leone & Pietro Siciliano

Authors
  1. Giovanni Diraco
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  2. Alessandro Leone
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  3. Pietro Siciliano
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giovanni Diraco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Niccolò Casiddu

  2. University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Claudia Porfirione

  3. Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy

    Andrea Monteriù

  4. The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pontedera, Pisa, Italy

    Filippo Cavallo

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Diraco, G., Leone, A., Siciliano, P. (2019). Radar Sensing of Vital Signs in Assisted Living Applications. In: Casiddu, N., Porfirione, C., Monteriù, A., Cavallo, F. (eds) Ambient Assisted Living. ForItAAL 2017. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 540. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04672-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04672-9_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04671-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04672-9

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