Modelling of Reflection of UWB Pulses from Trapped Human Beings

In emergency situations, particularly within smoke-filled, partially or completely collapsed large buildings, knowledge of the location and the state of the victims is largely limited, due to various obstacles that are result of an earthquake or fire. Therefore a reliable tool is needed which would have good victim detection and localization, but also material penetration capabilities

One of the main obstacles faced in human breathing detection using UWB radar is the low SNR values associated with it, which makes target detectability challenging. A way to improve the SNR is to perform matched filtering in the receiver. It is therefore desirable to have a template which matches the scattered pulse as much as possible

In this paper we analyse how changes in thickness and conditions of body layers influence the shape of the scattered pulse and effectively the need of accurate matched filter template. On the other hand, obviously, more bandwidth results in higher resolution and thus facilitates breathing detection, but at the same time increases interference to other systems, thus, it is further important to investigate what the minimal bandwidth and optimal centre frequency should be for successful breathing detection. The detectability will be assessed by a developed human breathing detection algorithm.