Continuous blood pressure estimation using millimeter wave radar

Abstract

Blood pressure (BP) is one of the four main vital signs providing valuable medical information about the cardiovascular activity. In this paper, a new method for estimating systolic and diastolic BP in contact-free for comfort is proposed using a millimeter-wave (MMW) sensor. The MMW sensor is sensitive to small cardiac motion of 1mm or less included in chest surface motion because of the higher frequency and wider bandwidth available, thereby continuous systolic and diastolic BP per heartbeat would be able to be estimated from the time-domain features of unique cardiac motion waveform. Measurement was conducted with the MMW sensor system and the estimated systolic and diastolic BP are also compared with an intermittent BP monitor. As a result, the sensor system is found to estimate systolic and diastolic BP continuously.