volume | PIER Journals

2012-09-26

Prototype Ultra Wideband Radar System for Bladder Monitoring Applications

Martin O'Halloran,

Dr. Martin O'Halloran

Electronic and Electrical Engineering

National University of Ireland Galway

Ireland

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Fearghal Morgan,

Dr. Fearghal Morgan

College of Engineering and Informatics

National University of Ireland Galway

Ireland

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Daniel Flores-Tapia,

Dr. Daniel Flores-Tapia

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of Manitoba

Canada

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Dallan Byrne,

Dr. Dallan Byrne

Electronic and Electrical Engineering

University of Bristol

United Kingdom

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Martin Glavin,

Dr. Martin Glavin

Electronic and Electrical Engineering

National University of Ireland Galway

Ireland

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Edward Jones

Dr. Edward Jones

Electronic and Electrical Engineering

National University of Ireland Galway

Ireland

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Progress In Electromagnetics Research C, Vol. 33, 17-28, 2012

doi:10.2528/PIERC12080805

Abstract

The aim of this study is to address the management of urinary problems by detecting changes in the volume of urine within the human bladder using low cost, low power, wearable Ultra Wideband (UWB) sensors and signal processing techniques. The paper describes experiments on the classication of six three-layer dielectrically representative bladder phantoms, mimicking a range of muscle and bladder wall-to-wall distances. The process involves the illumination of the bladder with a UWB pulse. Due to the dielectric contrast between urine and bladder wall tissue at microwave frequencies, an electromagnetic reection is generated at both the anterior and posterior bladder wall. These reflections are recorded, the salient features are extracted and processed by a classification algorithm to estimate the volume of urine present in the bladder. To evaluate the prototype system, a number of physical bladder phantoms were constructed, each mimicking bladders of different volumes. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied and the processed features were classified by a k-nearest neighbour learning algorithm to estimate the state of the bladder (small, medium or full). The paper describes the bladder phantom prototype systems and the experimental setup. Results illustrate detection of phantom bladder states with an accuracy of up to 91%.

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Martin O'Halloran, Fearghal Morgan, Daniel Flores-Tapia, Dallan Byrne, Martin Glavin, and Edward Jones, "Prototype Ultra Wideband Radar System for Bladder Monitoring Applications," Progress In Electromagnetics Research C, Vol. 33, 17-28, 2012.
doi:10.2528/PIERC12080805

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