Two graduate students and their faculty advisor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Wireless Engineering Research and Education Center were recently recognized for their demonstration of the ‘SonarBeat’ vital sign monitoring system at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Sensing, Communication and Networking, or IEEE SECON.

Xuyu Wang, Runze Huang and Shiwen Mao earned the Best Demo Award for their project titled “SonarBeat: Sonar Phase for Breathing Beat Monitoring with Smartphones.” The technology, which has applications in health care, disaster recovery and even drowsy driving detection, is a contact-free system, which uses the transmittal of wireless signals to monitor respiration and heart rates.

Mao, director of the Wireless Engineering Research and Education Center and Samuel Ginn Endowed Professor, said the team’s next step is to pursue collaborations for testing the technology with researchers in industry or medical schools.