Characterization and Identification of IR-UWB Respiratory-Motion Response of Trapped Victims

Impulse-radio ultrawideband (IR-UWB) radar is a popular research topic in the field of post-earthquake search and rescue. By lowering center frequency, it can penetrate through earthquake rubble to detect trapped victims mainly by identifying their respiratory-motion response. Thus, low-center-frequency IR-UWB respiratory-motion response is characterized for the first time in this paper. On this basis, a novel constant false alarm rate (CFAR) algorithm that automatically identifies the response is developed. The IR-UWB respiratory-motion response has range extension and interrelation characteristics. With these characteristics, the algorithm can effectively improve the estimation accuracy of clutter energy in CFAR detection. The characteristics and the algorithm performance are verified by experiment results, which show not only great promise in practice but also significance for future research of IR-UWB radar for detection of trapped victims.