Ambient Health Sensing

Many cognitive and neurodegenerative diseases progress gradually and remain undetected in their early stages. Disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia often begin with subtle motor symptoms such as tremors, gait instability, or slowed movement. However, contemporary healthcare practices rely on rare, in-clinic assessments that capture only brief snapshots of a patient’s condition. Such episodic monitoring fails to capture day-to-day behavioral changes, delaying diagnosis and intervention. Therefore, there is a critical need for technologies that unobtrusively and continuously capture early behavioral and motor changes. Continuous, contactless, and intelligent monitoring, embedded within homes, hospitals, and care institutions, represents a critical step in shifting healthcare from reactive to predictive. Such systems enable the early detection of functional decline, enabling timely intervention and more informed clinical decision-making.

Among ambient sensing modalities, mmWave radar enables continuous, contactless, and unobtrusive observation of human activity. Unlike cameras, which raise privacy concerns, and wearable devices, which can be intrusive or prone to missing data, radar sensing can precisely characterize human motion, posture, and subtle micro-movements while preserving privacy and comfort. It captures large-scale kinematics such as gait and daily activity patterns, as well as fine micro-motions including tremors and vital signs. When deployed across homes, hospitals, and institutions, radar-based systems provide persistent awareness of behavioral and motor patterns, offering clinicians early indicators of neurological or cognitive decline.