Hallway Gait Monitoring System Using an In-Package Integrated Dielectric Lens Paired with a mm-Wave Radar

This paper presents a novel hallway gait extraction system that enables an individual’s spatiotemporal gait parameter extraction at each gait cycle using a single FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) radar. The purpose of the proposed system is to detect changes in gait that may be the signs of changes in mobility, cognition, and frailty, particularly for older adults in retirement homes. We believe that one of the straightforward applications for gait monitoring using radars is in corridors and hallways, which are commonly available in most retirement and long-term care homes. To achieve in-corridor coverage, we designed an in-package hyperbola-based lens antenna integrated with a radar module package empowered by our fast and easy-to-implement gait extraction method. We validated system functionality by capturing spatiotemporal gait values (e.g., speed, step points, step time, step length, and step count) of people walking in a hallway. The results achieved in this work pave the way to explore the use of stand-alone radar-based sensors in long hallways in retirement apartment buildings or individual’s homes for use in day-to-day long-term monitoring of gait parameters of older adults.