Most traditional human body sensors only can detect the main and smaller human body movements. It is impossible to detect slight movements like breathing, which makes the pursuit of higher precision human sensing applications to be beyond one’s power. This article will introduce you to the latest technology development of the new high precision radar sensor.
Hyper-Sensitized Radar Sensor
In the application of human body sensing, PIR (Pyro-electric Infrared Detector), camera and ultrasonic sensor are used traditionally, but these detection techniques can only detect the major and minor movements, subtle human movements cannot be accurately detected. The new small and high-precision radar sensor has been able to detect tiny human movements, and it has been a new choice for the application of human detection, whether it is main, subtle movements, or even breathing.
Novelda, founded in 2004, separate from the University of Oslo in Norway, develops sensors based on UWB-radar technology for various applications in personnel detection and vital signs monitoring. The products include XeThru Presence sensor for motion detection, breathing action detection and RPM (Respiration Per Minute) report, and XeThru Respiration sensor used to detect human beings and the respiration per minute. In addition, Novelda also offers XeThru module product, XeThru development platform, XeThru sensor development tool communication software and so on, to assist manufacturers to develop human detection related products.
The XeThru OEM module product includes all building blocks of the radar sensor, containing radar SoC, antenna, MCU and header connectors and other hardware for signal processing, as well as low-level radar algorithm, communication layer software, and the related documents of open software API and hardware connecting interface, etc. The client does not have to carry out the design of UWB (Ultra Wideband) radar antenna and PCB, nor the design of radar and the signal processing algorithm. The module has been certified by FCC (USA), CE/ETSI (Europe), KCC (Korea) and MIC/ARIB (Japan) to help customers reach a faster time to market.
The XeThru module has a strong sensitivity to motion sensing, and can detect less than 1mm movement with a unique perspective. It can penetrate quilts, blankets and clothes, even light building materials. It can also be used to measure distance, even measure the distance of one or more objects at the same time, can limit the distance and set up the detection area, and can identify and isolate tiny movements. The low cost module is suitable for mass applications and produces IC based on low-cost CMOS technology, which is a highly scalable and low-cost hardware platform.
The focus areas of XeThru are medical monitoring, vital signs monitoring and human detection, and XeThru non-contact breathing module can measure RPM, single breathing displacement and body movement. No matter the sleeping posture of human body, and whether you cover yourself with a quilt or wear clothes, it can be accurately measured. Compared with the medical PSG (Polysomnography) equipment, XeThru provides almost the same data (up to 97% of the correct breathing or movement state).
The XeThru module applications are quite diverse, such as for a non-contact infant monitor, which provides respiratory data of respiratory arrest warning, the real-time status of sleep/wake, and the actual sleep quality index that varies with time, to ensure that the infant does not have undetected respiratory problems. The XeThru sensor can provide the real-time status and the long-term recording of infant sleep quality, so that parents can find ways to improve it. In addition, many people have sleep problems, and the lack of sleep and poor sleep quality is a public health issue. Through the use of XeThru sensor, it can track breathing and movement throughout the night and carry out sleep monitoring.
Many elderly people need patient nursing monitoring and non-contact vital signs monitoring. The monitoring system can provide respiratory rate, sleep state, bed status detection and so on, and it can provide better information for night care workers or nurses to improve the efficiency of caring for a large number of patients. The use of XeThru sensor can assist life and patient monitoring, such as long-time sitting, sleepwalk, sleep/wake measurement, bed detection, patient turn-over detection and staying too long in the bathroom, all can be detected, which is suitable for assisted living, rest homes and hospitals and which can send alerts to employees or relatives.
Besides, the XeThru sensor can also be used in the fire-fighting evacuation system of hotel. The operator can see which rooms have not been evacuated, and send information to the rescue workers. The XeThru presence sensor can also be used as an infant presence sensor which can detect the presence of a human body in a car in a non-contact real-time manner, prevent the car from overheating during parking which may cause the high temperature of infant in the car, and send a warning to the driver to remind them not to lock an infant in the car.
Novelda also introduces X4 pulse UWB radar system chip, receiver, X4M300 presence sensor, X4M200 breathing sensor, XeThru development platform, XeThru sensor development tool communication software and so on. It provides the comprehensive solution to develop the related application products, which will be the best choice for the related product developers.