ISSN: 2277-3754

International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT)

Volume 1, Issue 5, May 2012

A Modern Life detection System to Detect Human

Being Trapped under Earthquake Rubble
G. N. Zade, S. S. Thakare, D. S. Chaudhari
Abstract: In the past, when victims were trapped under
earthquake rubble, there was a little chance that they would
found. This was due the fact that rescue techniques such as
optical devices, acoustic devices or robotic systems were found
limited application for the detection buried victims. If victim
was unconscious and was unable to shout for help then the
existing rescue system found to be failed. With the help of
microwave signals the life signs can be detected as it is able to
sense the heart beat and breathing signals of human being
trapped under collapse debris. A life detection system based on
microwave frequency detects the human body vibration by
Doppler shift effect. The life detection system has been
implemented with simulated rubble and several humans by
illuminating microwave beam on their different body position
and it is found that phase shift occurs in the illuminated beam
on frontsiide of human body was maximum at chest and
minimum at forehead. This phase shift may help rescuer to
saves human lives.

. Afterwards, optical devices and acoustic detectors were

used. But they are not used now a day as optical devices
requires expert operators and acoustic detectors quiet
environment [10]. Then wireless robotic tracking system
came into an existence which is equipped with a thermal
sensor. The robot navigates through rubble to find
humans body temperature. The GSM system of tracking
system sends SMS on the rescuers mobile. These
wireless robots are difficult to track once they go out of
sight [7].
Considering all these difficulties in conventional and
existing technologies, there is a need to develop the life
detection system based on the microwave signals which
will overcome the drawbacks of current rescuing systems
as microwave beam has penetration capabilities through
material [5]. In the radar, the human presence is sensed
by Doppler theory by detecting humans periodic
breathing and heart beats signals [6]. The working
principle of life detection system is based on the
penetration of microwave beam and Doppler shift effect.
The basic principle of life detection system is to
illuminate a human victim buried under rubble with a
microwave beam. As human subject is having its own
vibration. This vibration may cause phase change in the
incident microwave beam according to Dopplers effect.
So, the backscattered microwave beam has phase change
in it if there is a presence of alive human victim [1]. The
principle of life detection system is as shown in Fig.1.

I. INTRODUCTION
An earthquake causes loss of many human lives every
year as humans are trapped under collapsed debris or
earthquake rubble. During rescue operation while shifting
or falling of rubble also cause death of trapped victims
[3]. The disaster in the New York City at World Trade
Center claimed lives of more than 5000 people. It was
said if survivors has been found and rescue earlier the
numbers of victims have been lower. There is no end to
the number of lives lost as the result of such disasters as
landslides, collapsed tunnels and avalanches [3]. Various
conventional and existing technologies are available for
detection of such trapped victim. But these techniques
have major limitations. Like initially trained dogs were
used but they detect dead victims also which consumes
prec
ious
time

calculate the speed of stars by observing the change in

frequency of their light Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
provides the information about the time interval between
heartbeats and consequently emotional state of human
being. Heart beat and breathing provides the periodic
chest movement of victim. According to the Doppler
theory, the reflected signal has phase shift by periodic
movement of human body [8]. The phase change is
proportional to the displacement of the human body
surface. Doppler radar system can use for heart rate
extraction with the sufficient accuracy.

Fig
1.O
pera
tion
of
Life
Dete
ction System

Apparent difference between the frequency at which

waves including light sound, and radio waves leave a
source and that at which they reach an observer. The
relative motion of the observer and the wave source
causes the effect, first described by the Austrian physicist
Christian Doppler (1803 1853). It can be observed by
listening to the blowing horn or siren of an approaching
vehicle, whose pitch raises as the vehicle approaches the
observer and falls as it recedes. It used in radar to

II. METHODOLOGY
Apparatus Used: The NV9000 microwave test-bench
introduced was use to implement microwave life
detection system. The NV 9000 X band waveguide is
having inner dimension 22.86 mm length and 10.16 mm.
Life detection system consists of various waveguide

279

ISSN: 2277-3754
International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT)
Volume 1, Issue 5, May 2012
components such as reflex klystron, isolator, hybrid and
circular tee, horn antenna and diode detectors. A reflex
klystron generates the microwave beam of 8 GHz to
9GHz. Isolator is used to avoid any reflection because of
noise. When it is required to combine two or more signals
or split a signal into two or more parts in a waveguide
system, tee shape junction must be used. There are two
types of tee junction H-plane tee and E-plane tee. Tuners
are used to match the load impedance with the source
impedance. A horn antenna is used to transmit radio
waves from a waveguide out into space, or collect radio
waves into a waveguide for reception. A microwave
circulator is a nonreciprocal ferrite device which contains
three or more ports. The input from port n will come out
at port n + 1 but not out at any other port. A three-port
ferrite junction circulator, usually called the Y-junction
circulator, is most commonly used. To observe the
microwave signal on CRO, detector mount has been used.
Detector mount contains a diode which is mounted to
provide complete dc path without upsetting the RF fields
in the waveguide During the experiment an operating
frequency was kept at 8GHz, repeller voltage was taken
190V-210V, beam voltage was 250-300V, beam current
was 20-25mA and antennas dimension was length = 7
inches, outer aperture = 4 inches, inner aperture = 1 inch.
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD

Simulation of Rubble: A series of experiments are

conducted in the environment of depicted in Fig. 3.
Various layers of bricks were used to simulate the
thickness of rubble. The bricks used are of concrete
material having thickness of 3 inch. Initially beam is
illuminated on an only brick then thickness of rubble was
increased upto 5 layers of bricks. The several experiments
were also perform by taking non-uniform rubble which
includes two 12mm wooden sheet, a water bottle, two
concrete bricks and two thick note books. The thickness
of non-uniform rubble was 10 inch
Subjects: Several experiments have been conducted on
ten different human being (S. T.: F 20, S.A: M 23,
A.B.K.: M 24, S.S.B.: M 25, P.P.T.: F 26, A.A.: M 28,
A.O.V.: F 29, S.B.: F 30, N.N.M.: M, 40) are participated
While detecting the presence of trapped victim, the
received signal will have phase shift, this amount of
phase shift is vary depending upon the orientation of
human being under rubble. So, phase shift for the
different orientation of human being were measured. The
beam was illuminated on face, neck, chest and stomach
from four directions of human being. This also helps to
predict the position of trapped victim trapped under
rubble.

Fig. 2 Schematic of X band Microwave Life Detection System [K M Chen]

NV 9000 X Band reflex klystron oscillator generates a

very stable microwave at 8.5 GHz to 9.8 GHz with an
output power of 400mW at beam voltage 300V, beam
current 25mA and -190V repeller voltage supplied by the
klystron power supply. This wave was fed to a NV 304
isolator. The NV 223 was a magic tee whose main arm
couples the signals with the tuner and one of the auxiliary
ports was connected to detector mount. The NV 209
detector mount had 50 Ohm RF probe connector. The last
port was terminated using flange. The tuner was attached
to first port of the port NV 209 Y-circulator. The port2
was connected with the pyramidal horn antenna and port3
was attached with the detector mount to take out the
output signal. The wave was radiated into open space via
horn antenna. The same antenna was used as a receiving
antenna also.
When the microwave beam incident into earthquake
rubble, a beam penetrates into it up till it detect any

vibration or oscillation [9]. After detecting any kind

oscillation the beam was reflected back from that
oscillating surface with phase shift. If incident wave is
given as Atcos(ct) then received signal reflected from
alive human being will be Ar(ct + ) which shows that
the reflected signal is phase modulated due to body
oscillation, where At and Ar are the amplitude of incident
and reflected signals respectively and denote the phase
shift occurs according to the Doppler shift effect [2].
The phase shift between two signals can be measured
with the help of Lissajous pattern. Both the input and
output signals are given to 60MHz cathode ray
oscilloscope on channel1 and channel2 simultaneously.
Fig.3 shows the lissajous pattern (a) in absence of human
being and (b) in presence of human being. The phase shift
can be calculated by following formula:
= sin-1 (B/A)

280

ISSN: 2277-3754
International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT)
Volume 1, Issue 5, May 2012

Fig. 3 Lissajous Pattern (a) Absence of Human Being (b) Presence of Human Being

signals of living subjects through rubble having width of

about four layers of bricks. From the result it is observed
that phase shift between transmitted and received signals
are increases from forehead to heart and then decreases. It
is believe that through the development of similar and
related techniques for life detection system, it may be
possible to overcome the current fundamental problems
in detecting buried victims and save many precious lives.

III. RESULTS
The phase shift was clearly observed upto three layers
of bricks i.e. 12 inches and for non-uniform rubble of 10
inches from four direction of victim. But for four layers
of bricks the phase change was very small. The X band
microwave beam illuminated on an overhead, face, neck,
chest and stomach from front, left, right, and backside of
victim. The phase change was observed for each
orientations and it was found that different phase shift
were obtained for different human body position. Fig. 5
shows various phase change occurred when beam was
illuminated on human victim with rubble width of one
bricks. While measuring the phase shift for all
orientations it was observed that the phase change was
more when the beam was penetrating from front side of
victims as shown in Fig. 5. Also, phase shift was less for
forehead position then it is gradually increases till chest
and then decreases i.e. the maximum phase shift is occur
at chest when beam is illuminated from front side. In
spite of the amount of phase shift, the same nature of
change of phase shift were observed for two, three and
four layers of bricks as shown in Fig. 5 (a), Fig. 5 (b),
Fig. 5 (c) respectively. Fig. 5 (e) shows various phase
change for different orientations of human being with 10
inches of non-uniform rubble width. For non-uniform
rubble also same variation of phase were obtained. Here
also maximum phase shift occurred at chest when beam is
illuminated from front side. The phase shift from left and
right sides are nearly same. The lowest phase shift
occurred when beam is illuminated from back sides of
victim. From the obtained observation it is cleared that if
rescuer sends microwave beam in rubble and if there is
alive victim then reflected signal will be phase
modulated. Also by penetrating a microwave beam at
immediate next position of rubble the orientation of
trapped can be predicted and it will helpful for rescuer to
saves that trapped victims lives.

REFERENCES
[1] Chen,K. M.,D. Misra,H. Wang,H. L. Chueng,et al.,An
Xband M/W life-detection system, IEEE Trans.
Biomedical Eng., Vol. BME- 33,697701,July 1986.
[2] Chen KM, Huang Y, Zhang JP, Norman A, RF lifedetection systems for searching human being, IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING,
Pages 105-114, JAN 1991 .
[3] W. S. Haddad, The Rubble Rescue Radar (RRR): A Low
Power Hand-Held Microwave Device for the Detection of
Trapped Human Personnel, Work performed under the
auspices of the US .Department of Energy by the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405Eng43. APRIL 1997.
[4] Yanming Xiao; Changzhi Li; Jenshan Lin; Accuracy of A
Low- Power Ka-Band Non-Contact Heartbeat Detector
Measured from Four Sides of A Human Body Dept. of
Electr. & Comput. Eng., Florida Univ., Gainesville, FL, :
Microwave Symposium Digest, 2006. IEEE MTT-S
International June 2006.
[5] Wu, C. W. and Z. Y. Huang,Using the Phase Change of a
Reflected Microwave to Detect a Human Subject Behind a
Barrier IEEE Transaction Biomedical Engg, Vol. 55. No.
1, 267-2272, 2008.
[6] M. D'Urso, A SIMPLE STRATEGY FOR LIFE SIGNS
DETECTION VIA AN X-BAND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP Centro Ricerche Giugliano, SELEX Sistemi Integrati
SpA Via Circumvallation Esterna di Napoli, zona ASI,
Giugliano, I-80014, Italy Progress In Electromagnetic
Research C, Vol. 9, 119{129, 2009 .

IV. CONCLUSION
The strategy for detecting trapped alive victim under
earthquake rubble was implemented in which a
microwave beam was illuminated into rubble to receive
essential information about life under rubble. Thus, the
system operating at 10-GHz with 190-230V repeller
voltage may be used to detect the breathing and heartbeat

[7]

Albert Ko and Henry Y. K. Lau, Robot Assisted

Emergency Search and Rescue System With a Wireless
Sensor Network, International Journal of Advanced
Science and Technology Vol. 3, February, 2009.

[8] Olga Boric-Lubecke1, Victor M. Lubecke1, Isar

Mostafanezhad1,
Byung-Kwon
Park2,Wansuree
Massagram3, Branka Jokanovic4, Doppler Radar

281

ISSN: 2277-3754
International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT)
Volume 1, Issue 5, May 2012
Architectures and Signal Processing for Heart Rate
Extraction DEC 2009.
[9]

Kai-Rui Zhao, Xing Ming Wang, Yan Li, Xiang Yu, A

Life Detection System for Rescuing Robot, School of
Automation, Northwestern polytechnic University,
China710072.

phase (degree)

[10] M. Donelli,A rescue radar system for the detection of

victims trapped under rubble based on the independent
component
analysis
algorithm.
Progress
in
Electromagnetic Research M, Vol. 19, 173-181, 2011.

52
47

phase
Front
Right
Left
Back

42
37
32

Orientation

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)
Fig. 4 Variation of Phase Shift With Orientation of Subjects For Rubble Width of (A)One Brick (B) Two Bricks (C) Three Bricks
(D) Four Bricks And (E) 10 Inches With Non-Uniform Rubble

282