Time-Frequency Analysis of Terahertz Radar Signals for Rapid Heart and Breath Rate Detection

Abstract

We develop new time-frequency analytic techniques which facilitate the detection of a person's heart and breath rates from the Doppler shift the movement of their body induces in a terahertz radar signal. One straightforward means of doing such an analysis is the following: take the spectrogram of the ridgeline of the spectrogram of the radar signal. Instead of following this approach exactly, we consider an alternate method in which the ridgeline of the radar signal's spectrogram is replaced with a signal computed from spectral centroids. By using spectral centroids, rather than the ridgeline, we produce a smooth signal that avoids traditional problems with ridgelines, such as jump discontinuities and overquantization. This new method for time-frequency analysis uses a Toeplitz matrix-based algorithm that has a fast Fourier transform-based implementation, and permits centroids of the vertical strips of the spectrogram of the radar signal to be computed without ever having to explicitly compute the spectrogram itself.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA483261

Entities

People

  • Melody L. Massar

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • 5G Wireless Networks
  • Air Force
  • Algorithms
  • Continuous Waves
  • Continuous-Wave Radar
  • Contracts
  • Department Of Defense
  • Detection
  • Doppler Effect
  • Electromagnetic Scattering
  • Heart Rate
  • Metamaterial Absorbers
  • Radar
  • Radar Signals
  • Terahertz Radiation
  • United States Government
  • Vital Signs

Readers

  • Gulf War Illness and Chronic Multisymptom Illness in Veterans.
  • Image Processing and Computer Vision.
  • Radar Systems Engineering.