Ultrawideband and Ultrashort Impulse Signals, 6-10 September, 2010, Sevastopol, Ukraine

pp. 1-3

UWB BABY MONITOR

1

Ziganshin E.G., 2 Numerov M.A., 3 Vygolov S.A.

1

NanoPulse, Inc., Moscow, Russia

E-mail: zig@nanopulse.ru
2
NanoPulse, Inc., Moscow, Russia
E-mail: mikenum@nanopulse.ru
3
NanoPulse, Inc., Moscow, Russia
E-mail: vigolov@nanopulse.ru

Abstract
A successful case for UWB technology application to Vital Signs Monitoring Systems created by authors is presented in this paper. Baby Monitor for remote contactless monitoring of respiratory and heart rate is designed both for consumer and
medical infant monitoring applications.
Unlike conventional sound- and video-based baby monitors, which do not provide
any useful information at infant sleep time (no sounds or static picture) the devices
allow permanent parental control and effectively prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) from occurring. SIDS is reported to be leading death cause of healthy
infants after one month age.
Keywords: Ultra-Wide Band; Medical Radar; Monitoring; Newborn; Respiration;
Sleep apnea syndrome; Sudden infant death syndrome; Infant incubator.

1. INTRODUCTION
This article considers high tech UWB solutions for
one of the most important up-to-date challenges
opportune diagnostics of obstructive sleep disorders
also known as sleep apnea, primarily for babies,
which often cause sudden infant death syndrome
(SIDS) to occur. Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep. The
standard definition of any apneic event includes a
minimum 10 second interval between breaths.
Babies often display violation of their respiratory
rhythm, which can be irregular, shallow, fast or slow,
even respiratory arrest may happen.
If apnea is suspected or diagnosed, parents or medical personnel may install a baby monitor until the
condition is outgrown. However not every baby monitor is able to detect apnea. The choice must be done in
favor of devices capable to perform continuous vital
signs monitoring including motion activity, respiration and heart-beating and give timely alarm in case of
abnormal condition occurs.

2. BABY MONITORING
The importance of constant control over infants activity, especially during sleeptime is hard to overestimate.
At present a typical baby monitor is a radio system
used to remotely hear (and optionally watch) the infant. The transmitter is placed near to the child and the

978-1-4244-7468-4/10/$26 2010 IEEE

receiver is placed near to the person caring for the

infant.
However conventional baby monitors are not able
to detect sleep apnea and prevent SIDS. This is caused
by nature of the systems, which react on sound meaning that the baby is alive or display image of sleeping
baby with no confirmation whether it breathes or not.
Thus many doctors believe conventional baby monitors provide a false sense of security.
There are several solutions though aiming SIDS
prevention by looking at infants respiration.
Placing piezo-sensor pad below cot mattress
which detects even the slightest movements. Such
systems are limited to the sensor pad area and
heavy for transportation for away use. Moreover,
the sensor pad requires prevention maintenance
activities in order to avoid high humidity level at
the sensor location.
Motion sensor located in flexible rubber tip which
is attached the diaper. The sensor detects even the
slightest movements. Drawback of such systems is
that the sensor tip must always be in contact with
the skin which may disturb and irritate the baby.
Radar solutions prove to be contactless as well as
sensitive enough while due to their RF nature they
are dependent on reflected signal quality and signal to noise ratio. Next chapter will be focused on
UWB radars which we find optimal to become the
basis for next generation baby monitors.

Ziganshin E.G., Numerov M.A., Vygolov S.A.

3. UWB BABY MONITORS

3.1. NANOPULSE BABY SLEEPGUARD
NanoPulse Baby SleepGuard (BSG) shown on
Fig. 1 is a composite device which enables contactless
monitoring of newborns. Unlike conventional sound
and video based baby monitors, which react on natural
activity of the infants and do not provide any useful
information at their sleep time BSG constantly looks
over the babies and controls their respiration and
heart-beating rates as well as general body motion
while they are asleep. BSG is also equipped with temperature sensor and microphone.
The device informs supervisor about baby's condition and alarms when it observes dangerous abnormal
parameter value preventing from SIDS occurring.
BSG consists of the sensor unit (SU) and the parent
unit (PU).
Parent unit
Sensor unit

Fig. 1. NanoPulse Baby SleepGuard.

Essence of the device is its original SU construction which contains UWB radar with two independent
spaced receiving channels with internal coherence
relative to sounding short impulse radio signal which
enables achieving improved reliability in human body
motion registration. Reliability is improved due to the
following factors:
low probability of reflected signal phases fitting
the low sensitivity area of phase detectors simultaneously for both channels;
significant decrease of probability for simultaneous dramatic drop of reflected signal level in both
channels (because of interference).
The device detects the following baby's conditions:
Sleep the baby sleeps with no motion, the device
counts its respiration frequency and, in favorable
conditions, pulse rate. Case of any slight movements supervisor will be informed by a message.
Awake the condition is characterized by long
term movements of high amplitude.
Alarm respiratory arrest is detected or respiration frequency is abnormally low.
SU comes along with digital signal processing module
and performs the following functions: measuring vital
sign parameter values of the baby; transmitting measured values to the PU; continuous recording measured
values into built-in or attached nonvolatile memory.

PU performs the following functions: signaling about

measured vital sign values with display, buzzer and
vibrator; setting up SU and PU parameters via a user
menu; running continuous self-check on both SU and
PU operation (battery charge level, radio link quality).
Data communication between SU and PU is implemented via digital radio protocol in ISM frequency
band.

3.2. NANOPULSE INFANT INCUBATOR

MONITOR
Infant Incubator Monitor is designed for continuous
contactless monitoring of premature or ill baby's vital
signs such as motion, respiration and heart-beating
when the baby is placed in infant incubator. The device is also capable to check environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, atmosphere
conditions in the incubator.
Presently probes must be attached to the baby in
order to perform described above monitoring. Such
actions can hurt the baby. NanoPulse Infant Incubator
Monitor is contactless and trauma-free. The device
informs supervisor about baby's condition and alarms
when it observes dangerous abnormal parameter value
preventing SIDS.
There are two variants of the device implementation: autonomous device and embedded OEM module. First one has its own primary and backup power
unit, LCD indicator, control module and alarm system. The device is implemented as a monoblock and
is mounted on the top cover of the incubator. OEMversion has to be integrated in power, control and indication systems of the whole incubator. The device
can be mounted inside the incubator body.

4. TESTING NANOPULSE UWB SOLUTIONS

4.1. LABORATORY TESTS
The baby is simulated by an oscillating subwoofer
controlled by a PC via DAC.
Test strategy starts from testing reaction on single
frequency oscillations simulating typical infants respiration frequencies which lay between 30 and 60
breathes per minute. Next, respiration frequency is
modulated by heart beats having 1/10 of the respiration amplitude and frequency between 80 and 210
oscillations per minute. Finally, the test program simulates apnea conditions alternated with fast and slow
respiration frequencies, sometimes interfered by motion (a simple handshake of the test engineer).
Generally, test results show high reliability of the
device and reaction on dangerous infants states no
later than 20 seconds after the event occurs. In all
good cases baby monitor behaves silently as expected.

4.2. REAL LIFE TESTS

There is a challenge for getting official permission for
running clinical tests which requires passing SSP

Ultrawideband and Ultrashort Impulse Signals, 6-10 September, 2010, Sevastopol, Ukraine

UWB BABY MONITOR

(State Standard Specification) certification. Therefore
we rely on volunteering parents at present, not involving medical labs.
After getting permission from a spouse couple for
running the tests on their baby we executed a series of
hours-long sleep tests on 6 months-old girl placing SU
at 5070 cm above the cot. Data was recorded and
transferred on PC for further analysis with UltraScope
application software. The results show themselves to
be very interesting:
86% of the time respiration was clearly seen in
2040 breaths per minute range, 14% of the time
respiration was masked by motion.
83% of the time heart-beating was clearly seen in
90120 beats per minute range, 17% of the time
heart-beating was masked by motion.
There are many breath-holding incidents even
though the baby is considered healthy. Most of the
pauses have their length ~35 seconds, however
there are several events which can be classified as
sleep apnea when pause between two sequential
breathes exceeds 10 seconds.
Babys respiration and heart-beating charts for normal
and apnea respiration and pulse rates are shown on
Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 respectively. For the second graph
the pause between two sequential breathes reaches 11
seconds.

devices operation. Nevertheless we still consider NanoPulse UWB solutions for baby monitoring and
SIDS prevention have significant potential which is
100% proven by the tests conducted so far.

5. CONCLUSIONS
Described NanoPulse Baby SleepGuard and Infant
Incubator Monitor UWB solutions improve quality of
service and awareness of the patients at homes, in
hospitals and medical centers especially in terms of
opportune apnea detection and SIDS prevention.
However, in order to see these UWB solutions in the
market more tests and clinical trials must be conducted and completed in real environment for making
highly reliable and safe end user products.

REFERENCES
1. Caples SM, Gami AS, Somers VK (February
2005). "Obstructive sleep apnea". Annals of Internal
Medicine
142
(3):
18797.
doi:10.1001/archinte.142.1.187. PMID 15684207.
2. Enrico M. Staderini, "UWB radars in medicine,"
IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, Vol. 17, Issue 1, Page:13-18, 2002.
3. Immoreev I. Y., Samkov S. V. "Ultra-Wideband
(UWB) Radar For Remote Measuring Main Parameters of Patien's Activity". UWBUSIS02, Kharkov National University, Kharkov, Ukraine,
October 1, 2002.
4. Pavlov S. N., Samkov S. V., Solodov E. V. UWB
radars in the field of bio-medicine application.
UWBST, 4-7 July, 2006, Russia.

APPENDIX A NANOPULSE UWB BABY

MONITOR TECHNICAL PARAMETERS
Center frequency: 7 GHz.
Signal bandwidth (-10dB): 510 MHz.
Fig. 2. Incoming signals, infants respiration and
heart-beating charts normal condition.

Pulse duration (half-height): 2.5 ns.

Pulse power: 1 mW.
Average radiated power: 10 uW.
Operational range: 2080 cm.
Antennas beam width: 60.
Max. power flux density: 0.01uW/cm2.
Minimal respiration rate: 5 ppm.
Maximal heart rate: 300 ppm.
SU Battery life: 1 day continuously.
PU Battery life: 24 weeks.
SU-PU link distance: 30m indoor.

Fig. 3. Incoming signals, infants respiration and

heart-beating charts sleep apnea condition.
Obviously the amount of tests in real conditions is
very limited as of today and we do not have valid statistical data for making final conclusion about proper
Ultrawideband and Ultrashort Impulse Signals, 6-10 September, 2010, Sevastopol, Ukraine