Non-Contact Vital Signs Monitoring of Dog and Cat Using a UWB Radar

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Veterinary Technology
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Non-invasive monitoring of animal vital signs is crucial for veterinary care.
• Existing methods may cause stress or require physical contact.
• Radar technology offers a contactless approach for physiological assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an ultra-wideband (UWB) radar system for contactless vital signs monitoring in companion animals.
• To assess the efficacy of variational mode decomposition (VMD) in processing radar signals for accurate vital signs extraction.
• To establish a foundation for remote health monitoring in cats and dogs.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an ultra-wideband (UWB) radar system to collect physiological signals from domestic cats and dogs.
• Applied variational mode decomposition (VMD) to denoise and extract relevant features from the radar data.
• Validated the extracted vital signs (e.g., respiration rate, heart rate) against reference methods.

Main Results:

• The UWB radar system successfully acquired vital signs data from both cats and dogs.
• VMD processing significantly improved signal quality and enabled accurate extraction of respiratory and heart rates.
• Demonstrated high correlation between radar-derived vital signs and ground truth measurements.

Conclusions:

• Contactless vital signs monitoring of pets using UWB radar and VMD is feasible and accurate.
• This technology holds potential for improved veterinary diagnostics and remote patient monitoring.
• Further research can optimize the system for diverse animal populations and clinical settings.