Noncontact Monitoring of Infant Apnea for Hypoxia Prevention Using a K-Band Biomedical Radar

Every year many newborns will have apnea which easily leads to a lower level of oxygen saturation i.e. hypoxia. Traditional methods for apnea monitoring usually involve skin contact, so they might cause discomfort or even skin damage to the infants. In this paper, a noncontact infant cardiopulmonary monitoring technique aiming at prompt apnea detection is proposed based on a K-band continuous-wave biomedical radar sensor system, which is custom designed to be DC-coupled with an adaptive digital tuning function. Since the chest motions of infants can be detected by radar in a noncontact way, the respiratory movements can then be demodulated for apnea monitoring. Clinical trials have been carried out and the results show that both precise respiratory movements and apneas with different duration can be well monitored. It suggests the possibility for the proposed technique to be employed inside and outside the clinic.