Robust Non-Contact Biosiganl Sensing Technology for Extracting Dynamical Biomarkers in Building a Noninvasive Predictive Model for Inflammatory Response

A smart care system that can detect vital signs, as well as discriminate motions of the patients, can help to optimize clinical workloads and improve care efficiency. An increase in heart rate and respiratory rate can be associated with various medical conditions, thus becoming the most popular way to assess health conditions. The dynamical biomarkers extracted from the complex variations of heartbeat and respiration signals can further serve as the indicators for physiological health and even diagnostic markers of several types of diseases. Self-injection-locked (SIL) radar operating in the 2.4-GHz ISM band, which has high sensitivity and outstanding transmittance, can detect subtle chest wall vibrations caused by breathing and heart beating. Non-contact vital sign sensors have the distinct advantage of possible continuous monitoring without disturbing the patients. Hence, it can be used for monitoring critically ill patients as well as a home care service for the elderly through a continuous monitoring system. The goal of this project is to develop a system that uses the dynamical biomarkers with SIL radar sensing technology to monitor inflammatory response. Dynamical biomarkers provided by our system are general physiological parameters related to critical illness and could be utilized as indicators in monitoring patients’ complications. For home-based health care settings, this system can provide real-time warning alerts of abnormal states to early prevent the disease from deterioration.