CardiacWave: A mmWave-based Scheme of Non-Contact and High-Definition Heart Activity Computing

CardiacWave: A mmWave-based Scheme of Non-Contact and High-Definition Heart Activity Computing
Chenhan Xu: University at buffalo; Huining Li: SUNY Buffalo; Zhengxiong Li: SUNY Buffalo; Hanbin Zhang: University at Buffalo; Aditya Singh Rathore: University at buffalo; Xingyu Chen: University at Buffalo; Kun Wang: University of California; MING-CHUN HUANG: Duke Kunshan University; Wenyao Xu: University at buffalo

IMWUT: Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
Session: Health II

Abstract
Using wireless signals to monitor human vital signs, especially heartbeat information, has been intensively studied in the past decade. This non-contact sensing modality can drive various applications from cardiac health, sleep, and emotion management. Under the circumstance of the COVID-19 pandemic, non-contact heart monitoring receives increasingly market demands. However, existing wireless heart monitoring schemes can only detect limited heart activities, such as heart rate, fiducial points, and Seismocardiography (SCG)-like information. In this paper, we present \textsf{CardiacWave} to enable a non-contact high-definition heart monitoring. \textsf{CardiacWave} can provide a full spectrum of Electrocardiogram (ECG)-like heart activities, including the details of P-wave, T-wave, and QRS complex. Specifically, \textsf{CardiacWave} is built upon the Cardiac-mmWave scattering effect (CaSE), which is a variable frequency response of the cardiac electromagnetic field under the mmWave interrogation. The \textsf{CardiacWave} design consists of a noise-resistant sensing scheme to interrogate CaSE and a cardiac activity profiling module for extracting cardiac electrical activities from the interrogation response. Our experiments show that the \textsf{CardiacWave}-induced ECG measures have a high positive correlation with the heart activity ground truth (\textit{i.e.}, measurements from a medical-grade instrument). The timing difference of P-waves, T-waves, and QRS complex is 0.67\%, 0.71\%, and 0.49\%, respectively, and a mean cardiac event difference is within a delay of 5.3 milliseconds. These results indicate that \textsf{CaridacWave} {offers} high-fidelity and integral heart clinical characteristics. Furthermore, we evaluate the \textsf{CardiacWave} system with participants under various conditions, including heart and breath rates, ages, and heart habits (\textit{e.g.}, tobacco use).

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1145/3478127
WEB:: https://www.ubicomp.org/ubicomp2021/

Pre-recorded presentations for UbiComp/ISWC 2021, September 21–26