This paper presents the development of a non-contact, nonintrusive wrist pulse sensor based on the near-field variation of an array resonator. A compact resonator and its array were designed and fabricated on flexible substrate. The reflection coefficient of the resonator can vary as a function of the distance between the resonator and the walls of the major arteries, and the corresponding variation is utilized to obtain heart rate information at the wrist. To detect very weak pulse signals from the main arteries, a sensitivity enhancement technique was devised using a radio frequency (RF) array resonator. The sensor system was implemented with an RF switch to combine or select appropriate signals from the resonator element and was tested using the 2.4 GHz ISM band. The results demonstrated the sensor system's excellent performance in both sequential and simultaneous detection schemes. The measurement results showed that a heartbeat pulse can be detected from both radial and ulnar arteries via the array resonators. Considering the high sensitivity and characteristics, the proposed detection system can be utilized as a wearable, long-term health monitoring device.

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Novel nonintrusive technologies for wrist pulse detection have been developed and proposed as systems for sleep monitoring using three types of radio frequency (RF) sensors. The three types of RF sensors for heart rate measurement on wrist are a flexible RF single resonator, array resonators, and an injection-locked PLL resonator sensor. To verify the performance of the new RF systems, we compared heart rates between presleep time and postsleep onset time. Heart rates of ten subjects were measured using the RF systems during sleep. All three RF devices detected heart rates at 0.2 to 1 mm distance from the skin of the wrist over clothes made of cotton fabric. The wrist pulse signals of a flexible RF single resonator were consistent with the signals obtained by a portable piezoelectric transducer as a reference. Then, we confirmed that the heart rate after sleep onset time significantly decreased compared to before sleep. In conclusion, the RF system can be utilized as a noncontact nonintrusive method for measuring heart rates during sleep.

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This paper presents a vital sign detection sensor based on reflection coefficient variance from an antenna used in wireless communication devices. The near-field effect is estimated by performing 3D full-wave simulations using a dipole antenna and the magnitude variation of the reflection coefficient induced by human thorax movement due to heart and lungs is observed. The results support the possibility of vital sign detection based on the magnitude variation of the reflection coefficient from an antenna, which can be explained as a narrowband modulation scheme. In particular, a sensitivity enhancement method is proposed and analyzed, and experiments are carried out for heartbeat detection using a dipole antenna with the proposed system. Experimental results are compared between the direct detection and sensitivity enhancement detection schemes. FM signal is also applied to confirm that the proposed sensor works properly in conjunction with an existing communication system. The proposed cardiopulmonary detection sensor is implemented with off-the-shelf components at 2.4 GHz and excellent performance is obtained.