Using ultra-wideband sensing technology for intestinal motility measurement

Clinically many methodologies, both invasive and non-invasive, have been applied on the assessment of intestinal function in vivo. In routine, there are two preferable non-invasive methods, including ultrasound imaging and stethoscope, to get insight of intestinal motility for clinical diagnosis. However, the operation of traditional monitors is relied on professionals´ experience, and also the sensing probes needed to attach to the patient´s abdomen directly. The measurement procedure is easy to cause infection and uncomfortable. To improve the issues of these measuring techniques, the non-contact physiological parameters measuring technology will become an important innovation. In this paper, the novel ultra-wideband (UWB) based sensing technology, which includes UWB radio frequency (RF) pulse transmission and a Vivaldi antenna connected to UWB transceiver via coaxial cable, is proposed to non-contact monitor intestine activity. To evaluate the performance, the proposed method was applied on intestine motility measurement in the experiment with with/without drinking milk. As a result, the proposed method is validated to perform the capability of long-term continuous monitoring to reveal intestinal motility information in real-time.