Concurrent respiration monitoring of multiple subjects remains a challenge in microwave Doppler radar-based

non-contact physiological sensing technology. Prior research

using Independent component analysis with the JADE

algorithm has been limited to the separation of respiratory

signatures for normal breathing patterns. This paper

investigates the feasibility of using the ICA-JADE algorithm

with a 24-GHz phase comparison monopulse radar transceiver for separating respiratory signatures from combined mixtures of varied breathing patterns. Normal, fast, and slow breathing pattern variations likely to occur due to physiological activity, and emotional stress were used as a basis for assessing separation robustness. Experimental results showed efficacy for recognition of three different breathing patterns, and isolation of respiratory signatures with an accuracy of 100% for normal breathing, 92% for slow breathing, and 83.78% for fast breathing using ICA-JADE. Breathing pattern variations were observed to affect the signal-to-noise ratio through multiple mechanisms, decreasing with an increase in the number of

breathing cycles and associated motion artifacts. Additionally, for removing motion artifacts of fast breathing pattern empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is employed, and for slow breathing pattern, increasing the breathing cycles helps to achieve an accuracy of 89.2% and 94.5% respectively.