Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Aided Indoor Radar Monitoring: A Feasibility Study

• Published in: IEEE journal of electromagnetics, RF and microwaves in medicine and biology Vol. 7; no. 4; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Authors: Mercuri, Marco, Arnieri, Emilio, De Marco, Raffaele, Veltri, Pierangelo, Crupi, Felice, Boccia, Luigi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.12.2023; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Biomedical applications; cardiopulmonary activity; contactless; Doppler radar; Fall detection; Feasibility studies; Firefighters; Ghosts; Internet of Things; Localization; Monitoring; Propagation; Radar; Radar antennas; Radar cross-sections; Radar detection; Radar equipment; radar system; Radar tracking; Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces; remote human monitoring; Telemedicine; Tracking
• ISSN: 2469-7249; 2469-7257
• DOI: 10.1109/JERM.2023.3298730

The application of radar technology in indoor people monitoring has opened up new avenues, such as localization and tracking, vital signs monitoring, and fall detection. Nevertheless, one of the significant challenges facing radar systems is the issue of indoor multipath propagation, which results in radar ghosts that can diminish the detection accuracy or even compromise the monitoring process entirely. This study delves into the utilization of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) in radar-based indoor people localization. Thanks to the use of RIS, targets can be tracked from multiple orientations, achieving a more precise estimation of the propagation channel and in turn mitigating the effects of indoor multipath propagation. As a result, the detection performance of the radar system can be improved without increasing the radar's complexity. Empirical evidence gathered from experiments conducted in a laboratory environment has demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed approach in accurately locating multiple subjects in a two-dimensional (2-D) space while being able to reject radar ghosts. Practical implications of this novel approach include the development of smart building systems, Internet of Things (IoT), telemedicine, Hospital 4.0, automated nurse call solutions, ambient assisted living, firefighter tracking, and security applications.