Year: 2025
Type: review
Abstract: Millimeter-wave (mmWave) sensing has emerged as a promising technology for non-contact health monitoring, offering high spatial resolution, material sensitivity, and integration potential with wireless platforms. While prior work has focused on specific applications or signal processing methods, a unified understanding of how mmWave signals map to clinically relevant biomarkers remains lacking. This survey presents a full-stack review of mmWave-based medical sensing systems, encompassing signal acquisition, physical feature extraction, modeling strategies, and potential medical and healthcare uses. We introduce a taxonomy that decouples low-level mmWave signal features-such as motion, material property, and structure-from high-level biomedical biomarkers, including respiration pattern, heart rate, tissue hydration, and gait. We then classify and contrast the modeling approaches-ranging from physics-driven analytical models to machine learning techniques-that enable this mapping. Furthermore, we analyze representative studies across vital signs monitoring, cardiovascular assessment, wound evaluation, and neuro-motor disorders. By bridging wireless sensing and medical interpretation, this work offers a structured reference for designing next-generation mmWave health monitoring systems. We conclude by discussing open challenges, including model interpretability, clinical validation, and multimodal integration.
Source: Sensors
DOI: 10.3390/s25123706
Authors: Xiaoyu Zhang, Chuhui Liu, Yanda Cheng, Zhengxiong Li, Chenhan Xu, Chuqin Huang, Ye Zhan, Wei Bo, Jun Xia, Wenyao Xu
Language: English
Subfield: Biomedical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
OpenAlex ID: W4411283316