Radar Range-Breathing Separation for the Automatic Detection of Humans in Cluttered Environments

In this paper, a new sensing approach for the automatic detection and ranging of human targets in cluttered environments is detailed. The person detection does not require to preliminarily define a target threshold, thus minimizing the likelihood of false alarm events. Moreover, the proposed approach allows to resolve the artifacts due to the presence of multiple objects within the same radiation beam without increasing the system complexity and cost. A powerful graphical representation, denominated range-breathing graph, is exploited for quickly making the reader aware of the exact human location, employing the breathing rate as the key element for discerning between humans and non-human targets. The method is analytically described while exhaustive simulations are carried out for confirming the reliability and suitability of the method with regard to the state of art. The effectiveness of the range-breathing separation approach is demonstrated by using two different radar boards operating at the frequencies of 24 GHz and 122 GHz. The obtained results show the general validity of this approach for identifying humans in complex cluttered scenarios.