Patent ID: 7196629

Claim:
A method for the sensing of information about the position and/or movements of the body of a living being or a part of the body inside the body, comprising the following steps: a) sending an electromagnetic signal to a predetermined area of the body of the living being, b) receiving an electromagnetic signal reflected from the area of the body, c) evaluating the captured receive signal with regard for the difference in delay time and/or frequency relative to the transmit signal to determine the information, d) monitoring a range of a heart beat and breathing motion, e) generating a signal serving as an alarm or forwarding information to a higher-order system when evaluated information about heart and/or chest movement indicates a life-threatening, extraordinary situation, if the evaluated information falls below a selected frequency, or if the evaluated information about the heart exhibits an unusual change, wherein frequencies in the high-frequency range are used, wherein information obtained in evaluating of delay time differences between transmit signal and receive signal contains the distance between body or part of the body and transmit/receive antenna elements, and wherein devices for sending and receiving the signals are mounted on a steering wheel of a motor vehicle or in an immediate vicinity of the steering wheel for sensing of information about the position and/or movements of the body disposed in a motor vehicle, and emission characteristics of transmit antenna elements have an angle of aperture of less than 40 degrees.