1 of 12Medical Applications of Ultra-WideBand (UWB)Jianli Pan, [email protected] (A survey paper written under guidance ofProf. Raj Jain)DownloadAbstractAs an emerging technology, Ultra Wide Band (UWB) wireless communications provides a very different approach to wireless technologies compared to conventional narrow band systems, which brings huge research interests in it. Because of this, UWB has many potential applications to be researched. One of the promising application areas is inmedicine. Some unique features of UWB make it very suitable for medical areas. In this paper, we will give a survey of the features and its current major applications in medical areas such as medical monitoring, and medicalimaging, which are discussed and analyzed in detail. After that, other applications, future potential applications, andresearch directions are discussed. Current research organizations in this area are also given. At last, we summarize the whole survey paper.Keywords: Ultra-WideBand, UWB, Medical Application, medical monitoring, medical imagingTable of Contents1. Introduction1.1 Two modulation modes of UWB1.2 Medical UWB History2. UWB features for Medical Application2.1 Penetrating through obstacles2.2 High precision ranging at the centimeter level2.3 Low electromagnetic radiation2.4 Low processing energy consumed2.5 Features that UWB lacks3. UWB in Medical Monitoring3.1 Patient motion monitoring3.2 Vital signs monitoring of human body3.3 Monitoring of medicine storage4. UWB in Medical Imaging4.1 Cardiology Imaging4.2 Pneumology Imaging4.3 Obstetrics Imaging4.4 Ear-Nose-Throat Imaging5. Other applications and Future Potential Applications5.1 Other medical application areas of UWB 5.2 Research Directions5.3 Research Organizations2 of 126. Summary7. References8. List of Acronyms1. IntroductionUltra-wideband (UWB) radio is an emerging technology with some unique attractive features which are combined with researches in other fields such as wireless communications, radar, and medical engineering fields. Formally before 2001, UWB's application is limited mainly in military areas. However, since 2002, FCC has gradually allowed the commercial usage of these bandwidths, which makes it possible that every common people could benefit the UWB features. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulate that the frequency for the UWBtechnique is from 3.1GHz to 10.6GHz in America . However, in Europe , the frequencies include two parts: from 3.4 GHz to 4.8 GHz and 6 GHz to 8.5 GHz. The power radiation requirement of UWB is strict and it would not disturb the existing equipments because UWB's spectrum looks like background noise. The UWB spectrum mask defined by FCC and the CEPT proposal is shown in Fig. 1[Allen05].1.1 Two modulation modes of UWBWith the abundant frequency resource, the UWB has two modulation modes: the Impulse Radio (IR) and Multi-band OFDM [Xu07]. They have different advantages and could be applied in different fields in medical area. MB-OFDM mode of UWB could be used for small range high speed data communications. For IR mode, by using low-power ultra-short pulses (sub-nanosecond interval), UWB has many applications: short-range high-speed broadband access to the Internet, accurate localization at centimeter level, and high resolution penetrating radar in the medical engineering et al. In these applications the accuracy detection and location is much adapt to the medicalmonitor, and the high resolution imaging is suitable for pathologic imaging, which is modulated by the IR. So the UWB technology attracts more and more researchers' interest in the medical applications area. In a word, the two modes of UWB modulation illustrate the two main function of UWB: Sensing and Communicating. Fig 1. UWB Spectrum Mask as Defined by FCC and the current CEPT proposal [Allen05]1.2 Medical UWB HistoryApplying Ultra-WideBand (UWB) technology in medical applications is an emerging research trend in recent years.3 of 12First attempt of using UWB radar in medical applications is in human body monitoring and imaging in 1993 . OnAugust 9, 1994, the first US Patent application was filed for medical UWB radar. One year later, MIT began aneducational project for the “Radar Stethoscope”[MIT95]. In 1996, the biomedical use of UWB radars is better described with photo and sample tracings, and in the same year, the US Patent [McEwan96] was awarded. Since then, UWB is often deemed as a possible alternative to remote sensing and imaging. Compared with X-ray imaging,UWB radar probes use non-ionizing electromagnetic waves which proved to be harmless to human body. Moreover,the UWB radar has very low average power level and is very power efficient. Thus is suitable to be a potentially cost effective way of human body imaging, especially in real time imaging. By 1999, many works have begun for UWB medical applications in cardiology, obstetrics, breath pathways and arteries. The following parts of the paperare organized as follows. Section 2 gives several key features of UWB that make it suitable for medical applications. Current research and application of UWB in medical monitoring are discussed in Section 3. Medical UWB in medical imaging is analyzed and discussed in Section 4. We then discuss the future work directions and future potential applications in Section 5. Finally, a summary is given.Back to Table of Contents2. UWB features for Medical ApplicationIt is known that the UWB pulse is generated in a very short time period (sub-nano second). So it has spectrumbelow the allowed noise level. This feature makes it possible to get Gbps speed by using 10GHZ spectrum. SoUWB is suitable to be used for high-speed over short distances. Such “noise-like” feature relies on ultra-shortwaveforms and does not require IF processing because they can be operated at baseband. This UWB feature haslong been appreciated as key advantages for medical engineering [Xu07].2.1 Penetrating through obstaclesIn discussing this capability, we could compare UWB with ultrasound. Although UWB and ultrasound are in fact very similar and many of the signal processing techniques used in ultrasonic systems can be applied to UWB systems, it is different from ultrasound which has broad application in today's world. The major difference is that ultrasound is basically a line of sight technology and it is very short range (It is used for medical imaging but it typically works only over a few inches). However, UWB is different
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