A Novel Noncontact Ku-band Microwave Radiometer for Human Body Temperature Measurements

In emergency departments and ICUs, a novel noncontact thermometer is urgently required to measure physical temperatures through common clothing to accomplish body temperature precise measurement for critical patients. Hence, a Ku band digital auto gain compensative microwave radiometer is proposed to get a higher theoretical temperature measurement sensitivity than a Dicke radiometer, benefit miniaturization design, and reduce attenuation caused by common clothing. Meanwhile, a novel compensation method for receiver calibration is proposed to improve temperature sensitivity under non-ideal conditions, and the revised systematic calibration method is elaborated. Furthermore, in order to invert body physical temperatures through clothing, a microwave thermal radiation transmission model of clothed human body is constructed, and the microwave radiation apparent temperature equation of clothed human body is derived. Importantly, three groups of experiments are set up to confirm the designed radiometer’s performance, especially the biological tissue temperature measurement. Results show that: 1) the designed radiometer has high temperature sensitivity and accuracy for unsheltered targets; 2) amplitude attenuation caused by cotton cloth for Ku band microwave is much smaller than that for infrared thermal radiation; 3) the designed radiometer can track physical temperatures of targets (such as water and swine skin tissue) sheltered or covered by cotton cloth relatively accurately. In conclusion, our designed Ku band microwave radiometer is certificated to have outstanding performance in temperature measurement for biological tissue through common clothing, which can be developed into a promising product in medical monitoring.