Date of Award

Spring 2025

Document Type

Thesis

Terms of Use

© 2025 John-William Cordero. This work is freely available courtesy of the author. It may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. For all other uses, please contact the copyright holder.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Engineering Department

First Advisor

Allan R. Moser

Abstract

The goal of this project is to develop a device that uses software-defined radio to detect human biological activity through walls by detecting changes in the received signals depending on if a human is present or not. Such a device will help local survivors locate victims from being stuck under collapsed buildings and debris, as opposed to having to wait for search and rescue teams. By making a relatively low cost and easy to use device, a more practical application of human detection was developed. Results showed that while the device requires user interpretation to determine the presence of a human at a more limited range, evidence shows that it is capable of detecting human respiration rate through walls at a distance of 1.1-1.2 meters while costing less than 400 USD, pointing towards the benefit of further investment into improving the device.

Included in

Engineering Commons

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