A framework for simulation of UWB system for heart rate detection

Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) signals have become attractive for their particular advantage of having narrow pulse width which makes them suitable for remote sensing of vital signals. In this work, a MATLAB framework is presented which simulates an environment whereby the UWB signals can be observed and evaluated at different locations of the simulated channel for wireless measurement of heart rate. Main parts of the simulated system include UWB signal generator, transmitter and receiver, channel model which contains human body. The proposed system enables us to evaluate the effect of different parameters, such as thickness of channel layers and heart motion parameters on the accuracy of heart rate measurement. One of the main features of this work is employing a five layers channel model with arbitrary attenuation parameters defined by user for simulation of human body. In our experiments attenuation of transmitted Gaussian monocycle pulse centered at 4 GHz frequency in each layer with different thickness for all existing multipath are calculated. Moreover, the effects of receiver sensitivity and three types of irregularities in the accuracy of measured heart rates are investigated.