A comparison between ceiling-mounted FMCW, IR-UWB and Wi-Fi radar for in-bedroom human activity monitoring and sleep interruption detection

Anton Lambrecht, Reda El Hail, Xianjun Jiao, Pieter Crombez, Dominique Schreurs et al.|August 20, 2026arXiv

Key Takeaway

Different RF sensing technologies excel at different things: IR-UWB wins on accuracy, FMCW on generalization to new spaces. For healthcare monitoring, choose based on whether you prioritize activity recognition or robustness to environmental changes.

Summary

This paper compares three radar technologies (FMCW, IR-UWB, and Wi-Fi) for detecting human activities and sleep patterns from ceiling-mounted sensors. Using the same neural network and test conditions across 20 people and different room layouts, the study shows IR-UWB performs best overall (89% accuracy), while FMCW adapts better to new environments.

evaluation multimodal applications

Key Terms

fmcw ir-uwb wi-fi-sensing doppler-resolution range-resolution