Noncontact Millimeter-Wave Real-Time Detection and Tracking of Heart Rate on an Ambulatory Subject

This paper presents a solution to an aiming problem in the remote sensing of vital signs using an integration of two systems. The problem is that to collect meaningful data with a millimeter-wave sensor, the antenna must be pointed very precisely at the subject´s chest. Even small movements could make the data unreliable. To solve this problem, we attached a camera to the millimeter-wave antenna, and mounted this combined system on a pan/tilt base. Our algorithm initially finds a subject´s face and then tracks him/her through subsequent frames, while calculating the position of the subject´s chest. For each frame, the camera sends the location of the chest to the pan/tilt base, which rotates accordingly to make the antenna point at the subject´s chest. This paper presents a system for concurrent tracking and data acquisition with results from some sample scenarios.