Photonic radar for contactless vital sign detection

Abstract Vital sign detection is used across ubiquitous scenarios in medical and health settings, and contact and wearable sensors have been widely deployed. However, they are unsuitable for patients with burn wounds or infants with insufficient areas for attachment. Contactless detection can be achieved using camera imaging, but it is susceptible to ambient light conditions and has privacy concerns. Here we report a photonic radar for non-contact vital sign detection to overcome these challenges. This photonic radar can achieve millimetre-level range resolution based on synthesized radar signals with a bandwidth of up to 30 GHz. The high resolution of the radar system enables accurate respiratory detection from breathing simulators and a cane toad as a human proxy. Moreover, we demonstrate that the optical signals generated from the proposed system can enable vital sign detection based on light detection and ranging (LiDAR). This demonstration reveals the potential of a sensor-fusion architecture that can combine the complementary features of radar and LiDAR to achieve improved sensing accuracy and system resilience. The work provides a technical basis for contactless and high-resolution vital sign detection to meet the increasing demands of future medical and healthcare applications.