Monitoring of heart movements using an FMCW radar and correlation with an ECG

Monitoring the activity of the heart is important for diagnosing and preventing cardiovascular diseases. The electrocardiogram (ECG) is the gold standard for diagnosing such diseases. It monitors the heart’s electrical activity, and while this is highly correlated with the cardiac mechanical activity, it does not provide all the information. Other sensors such as the echocardiograph are able to monitor the heart’s movements, but such tools are expensive and hard to operate. Therefore, contactless monitoring of the heart using RF sensing has gained interest in recent years. In this paper, we describe a process to extract the movements of the heart from millimeter wave radar with high accuracy, and thus we provide a noninvasive and affordable way to monitor cardiac movements. We then demonstrate the correlation between the observed movements and the ECG. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm to synchronize the ECG signal and the processed signal from the radar sensor. The results we obtained provide insights on the mechanical activity of the heart, which could assist cardiologists in their diagnoses.