Microwave System for the Early Stage Detection of Congestive Heart Failure

Fluid accumulation inside the lungs, known as cardiac pulmonary edema, is one of the main early symptoms of congestive heart failure (CHF). That accumulation causes significant changes in the electrical properties of the lung tissues, which in turn can be detected using microwave techniques. To that end, the design and implementation of an automated ultrahigh-frequency microwave-based system for CHF detection and monitoring is presented. The hardware of the system consists of a wideband folded antenna attached to a fully automated vertical scanning platform, compact microwave transceiver, and laptop. The system includes software in the form of operational control, signal processing, and visualizing algorithms. To detect CHF, the system is designed to vertically scan the rear side of the human torso in a monostatic radar approach. The collected data from the scanning is then visualized in the time domain using the inverse Fourier transform. These images show the intensity of the reflected signals from different parts of the torso. Using a differential based detection technique, a threshold is defined to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy cases. This paper includes details of developing the automated platform, designing the antenna with the required properties imposed by the system, developing a signal processing algorithm, and introducing differential detection technique besides investigating miscellaneous probable CHF cases.