Metamaterials (MTMs) are engineered electromagnetic media with properties unattainable in natural materials, enabling the development of novel circuits and sensing architectures. In this talk, we present a metamaterial-based radar sensing system for multi-target vital sign detection and motion tracking. The proposed approach leverages composite right/left-handed transmission line (CRLH-TL) leaky-wave antennas (LWAs) to achieve continuous frequency-dependent beam scanning from backfire to endfire, ensuring wide angular coverage and excellent impedance matching through a compact and simple feeding network. By exploiting the inherent frequency-to-space mapping property of CRLH LWAs, spatial localization of multiple subjects can be accomplished through spectral analysis of the reflected signals. This mechanism allows real-time, noncontact monitoring of respiration and heartbeat simultaneously across several targets, as well as motion tracking within an extended field of view. Furthermore, the CRLH-based platform offers high-speed data acquisition determined primarily by the frequency sweep rate of the signal source, enabling efficient implementation in biomedical sensing, remote monitoring, and human–machine interaction.

Dr. Chung-Tse Michael Wu's research interests span applied electromagnetics, antennas, passive and active microwave and millimeter-wave components, MMIC, RF systems, and metamaterials. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, Taiwan, in 2006, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, USA, in 2009 and 2014, respectively. From 2014 to 2017, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Wayne State University (WSU) in Detroit, MI, USA. In 2017, he joined Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, USA, as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2022. Since 2024, he has been serving as an Associate Professor at NTU.

Dr. Wu currently serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Microwave and Wireless Technology Letters, IEEE Journal of Electromagnetics, RF and Microwaves in Medicine and Biology, and IEEE Access. He is also a member of the Technical Committee for IEEE MTT-28 and MTT-4, and served as Chair of IEEE MTT-28 from 2022 to 2023. He was the General Chair of the 2025 IEEE International Microwave Biomedical Conference (IMBioC) and is an IEEE MTT-S Distinguished Microwave Lecturer (DML) for the 2025–2027 term.

Dr. Wu has received several prestigious awards, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the WSU College of Engineering Faculty Research Excellence Award in 2016, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award (YFA) in 2019, and the DARPA Director’s Fellowship Award in 2021. In 2022, he was honored with the Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence at Rutgers University. In 2024, he received the IEEE MTT-S Outstanding Young Engineer Award.