Scalable Multisubject Vital Sign Monitoring With mmWave FMCW Radar and FPGA Prototyping

Abstract--In this work, we introduce an innovative approach to estimate the vital signs of multiple human subjects simultaneously in a non-contact way using a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar-based system. This work also explores the ambitious goal of extending this capability to an arbitrary number of subjects and details the associated challenges, encompassing both hardware and theoretical limitations. Supported by rigorous experimental results and discussions, the paper paints a vivid picture of the system's potential to redefine vital sign monitoring. An FPGA-based implementation is also presented as proof of concept of an entirely hardware-based and portable solution to vitals monitoring, which improves upon previous works in a multitude of ways, offering 2.7x faster execution and 18.4% lesser Look-Up T able (LUT) utilization and providing over 7400x acceleration compared to its software counterpart. A promising solution to overcome these issues is radar sensing technology for HR and BR measurement, offering non-contact capabilities. This approach also extends to applications including sleep apnea detection [5], fall detection [6] and patient monitoring [7]. This work was supported by the Chips to Startup (C2S) program, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India, IHub Mobility, IIIT Hyderabad, Kohli Center on Intelligent Systems (KCIS), IIIT Hyderabad and IHub Anubhuti-IIIT Delhi Foundation. Continuous-wave (CW) Doppler Radar systems have significantly advanced this field, addressing various technical challenges in HR and BR measurement [8] [9].