Theoretical limits for estimation of vital signal parameters using impulse radio UWB

In this paper, Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) for estimation of vital signal parameters, such as respiration and heart-beat rates, using ultra-wideband (UWB) pulses are derived. In addition, a simple closed-form CRLB expression is obtained for sinusoidal displacement functions under certain conditions. Moreover, a two-step suboptimal solution is proposed, which is based on time-delay estimation via matched filtering followed by least-squares (LS) estimation. It is shown that the proposed solution is asymptotically optimal in the limit of certain system parameters. Simulation studies are performed to evaluate the lower bounds and performance of the proposed solution for realistic system parameters.