Signal Separation Using a Mathematical Model of Physiological Signals for the Measurement of Heart Pulse Wave Propagation with Array Radar

Abstract

The arterial pulse wave, which propagates along the artery, is an important indicator of various cardiovascular diseases. By measuring the displacement at multiple parts of the human body, pulse wave velocity can be estimated from the pulse transit time. This paper proposes a technique for signal separation using an antenna array, so that pulse wave propagation can be measured in a non-contact manner. The body displacements due to the pulse wave at different body parts are highly correlated, and cannot be accurately separated using techniques that assume independent or uncorrelated signals. The proposed method formulates the signal separation as an optimization problem, based on a mathematical model of the arterial pulse wave. The objective function in the optimization comprises four terms that are derived based on a small-displacement approximation, unimodal impulse response approximation, and a causality condition. The optimization process was implemented using a genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through numerical simulations and experiments.