Medical Radar - Understanding the Significance of Short-Range Propagation Effects

Abstract:

Many years of research have shown that radar technology, in principle, enables remote monitoring of breathing and heart rates as well as medically relevant indicators such as the heart rate variability for example. Operating without physical contact with the patient under test, it is considered advantageous in contrast to conventional contact-based methods. However, radar-based medical measurements still cannot be considered sufficiently robust and reliable to be the primary source of information. Thus, a more detailed understanding is required to be aware of challenges and potential limitations of this sensing principle. After briefly reviewing the working principle of medical radars and the conventional understanding of the associated radar channel model, the webinar will elaborate on challenges stemming from the radar operating at a range comparable to the size of radar target, i.e., the subject under test, which is an atypical configuration from conventional radar theory viewpoint. The short range, which is an intrinsic property of the application, causes the onset of several phenomena. The webinar will particularly focus on the radar’s self-radar-cross-section and the scattering effects observed in the near field of electrically large targets. These aspects are typically intuitively neglected, but, in short-range scenarios, like in a medical radar, prove to exhibit a significant, however often overlooked, impact on the receive signal characteristics. Consequently, the webinar aims to increase awareness of the existence of these short-range propagation effects and their significance to enable a better understanding of the inherent challenges stemming from wave propagation phenomena in the radar channel of medical radars.

Speaker’s Details:

Alexander Koelpin
Fellow, IEEE

Alexander Koelpin (Fellow, IEEE) received the Diploma degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. and Habilitation degrees from the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg (FAU), Erlangen, Germany, in 2005, 2010, and 2014, respectively.

From 2005 to May 2017, he was with the Institute for Electronics Engineering, FAU. From 2007 to 2010, he was a Team Leader, from 2010 to 2015, a Group Leader of Circuits, Systems, and Hardware Test, and since 2015, he has been a Leader of the Group Electronic Systems. From June 2017 to February 2020, he was a Professor and the Head of the Chair for Electronics and Sensor Systems with the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg, Cottbus, Germany. Since March 2020, he has been with the Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany, as a Professor and the Head of the Institute of High-Frequency Technology. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 publications in his areas of interest. He serves as a reviewer for several journals and conferences. His research interests are in the areas of microwave circuits and systems, radar and wireless sensing, wireless communication systems, local positioning, and six-port technology.

Dr. Koelpin was a member of the Commission A: Electromagnetic Metrology of U.R.S.I. from 2012 to 2017. He has been an Elected Member since 2018 and has been the Vice Chair of the IEEE MTT-S/AP German Chapter Executive Board since 2020. He has received the IEEE MTT-S Outstanding Young Engineer Award in 2016, the ITG Award of the German VDE in 2017, and the IEEE Microwave Application Award in 2025. He was the Chair of the IEEE MTT-S Technical Committee MTT-24, from 2018 to 2020. He served as the Conference Co-Chair for the IEEE Topical Conference on Wireless Sensors and Sensor Networks, the Conference Chair for the 2020 German Microwave Conference, the Technical Program Chair for IEEE Radio and Wireless Week 2021, and the General Chair for IEEE Radio and Wireless Week 2023.

Bartosz Tegowski
Graduate Student Member, IEEE

Bartosz Tegowski (Graduate Student Member, IEEE) was born in 1997. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany, in 2019 and 2021, respectively, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the Institute of High-Frequency Technology.

His current research interests include passive components, antennas, electromagnetic theory, modeling of near-field scattering, and radar systems.

Mr. Tegowski was a recipient of the Science Award of the Gisela and Erwin Sick Foundation and the First Prize from the 3D-Printed Surface-Mounted Filter Student Design Competition of the IEEE International Microwave Symposium in 2023. He received the Best Student Paper Award of the German Microwave Conference in 2024, the Young Scientist Award of the International Radar Symposium in 2025, the Young Engineer Prize of the European  Microwave Conference in 2025, and the Young Scientist Award of the International  Microwave and Radar Conference (MIKON) in 2026. He was awarded the 2026 Sergei A. Schelkunoff Transactions Prize Paper Award for the best paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation in 2025. He serves as a reviewer for the IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS.