Vital Sign Radar with Optimum Antenna Strategy

Frequency planning and antenna selection are two very important factors governing the architecture, performance and usability of a vital sign detection radar. More often, these two decisions interact each other. This work studies the different choices that can be made when design a radar for such an application. The consequences of different selections are carefully compared and it is found that necessary tradeoffs should be made to achieve a balanced system performance. The combination of 24 GHz and substrate integrated waveguide slot array is proposed, which can provide an optimum approach leading to improved overall radar performance, profile and cost. The antenna array and radar design are explained in detail. A radar prototype for concept-proof is built and in-lab experiments are conducted to verify this approach. The obtained measurement results confirm the proposal favorably, proving its usefulness.