{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,1]],"date-time":"2026-02-01T08:18:04Z","timestamp":1769933884731,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"17","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,8,31]],"date-time":"2020-08-31T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1598832000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"University-level Project","award":["No. 2019XYY04 and No. 2019XBK09"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["No. 2019XYY04 and No. 2019XBK09"]}]},{"name":"the Key Logistics Research Project","award":["No. BLJ18J005"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["No. BLJ18J005"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The non-contact monitoring of vital signs by radar has great prospects in clinical monitoring. However, the accuracy of separated respiratory and heartbeat signals has not satisfied the clinical limits of agreement. This paper presents a study for automated separation of respiratory and heartbeat signals based on empirical wavelet transform (EWT) for multiple people. The initial boundary of the EWT was set according to the limited prior information of vital signs. Using the initial boundary, empirical wavelets with a tight frame were constructed to adaptively separate the respiratory signal, the heartbeat signal and interference due to unconscious body movement. To verify the validity of the proposed method, the vital signs of three volunteers were simultaneously measured by a stepped-frequency continuous wave ultra-wideband (UWB) radar and contact physiological sensors. Compared with the vital signs from contact sensors, the proposed method can separate the respiratory and heartbeat signals among multiple people and obtain the precise rate that satisfies clinical monitoring requirements using a UWB radar. The detection errors of respiratory and heartbeat rates by the proposed method were within \u00b10.3 bpm and \u00b12 bpm, respectively, which are much smaller than those obtained by the bandpass filtering, empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and wavelet transform (WT) methods. The proposed method is unsupervised and does not require reference signals. Moreover, the proposed method can obtain accurate respiratory and heartbeat signal rates even when the persons unconsciously move their bodies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s20174913","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,8,31]],"date-time":"2020-08-31T08:11:19Z","timestamp":1598861479000},"page":"4913","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":40,"title":["Adaptive Separation of Respiratory and Heartbeat Signals among Multiple People Based on Empirical Wavelet Transform Using UWB Radar"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"20","author":[{"given":"Mi","family":"He","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Medicine, Army Medical University (Third Military Medical University), Chongqing 400038, China"}]},{"given":"Yongjian","family":"Nian","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Medicine, Army Medical University (Third Military Medical University), Chongqing 400038, China"}]},{"given":"Luping","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Medicine, Army Medical University (Third Military Medical University), Chongqing 400038, China"}]},{"given":"Lihong","family":"Qiao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Technology, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing 400065, China"}]},{"given":"Wenwu","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,8,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1732","DOI":"10.1109\/JSEN.2010.2044239","article-title":"Noncontact respiration rate measurement system using an ultrasonic proximity sensor","volume":"10","author":"Min","year":"2010","journal-title":"IEEE Sens. 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