Wireless health monitoring system

Rapid advances in wireless communication devices and systems had and continue to have a significant impact on the healthcare industry. One important application is to monitor patient's health status anytime and anywhere without restricting the patient's movement as a result of being tied down through cables to monitoring equipment. Through the miniaturizations of sensors and the use of wireless interface to transmit the data recorded by the sensors, health care monitoring can be extended beyond the hospital confines. This is regarded as a core technology for deployment of ubiquitous healthcare in home and mobile application with the potential of reducing the cost of health care as the physician is able to monitor the patient's progress without the inconvenience and expense of hospitalization. The proposed design focuses on the development of a wireless health monitoring prototype system with the initial emphasis on measuring the electrical activity of the heart. One application of such a device would be in the monitoring of the elctrocardiogram (EKG) activity in sleep apnea patients. Two types of wireless heart monitors for indoor use and outdoor use will be considered. The prototype is composed of three main parts: microprocessor, sensor, and radio. The Microprocessor is the central control unit of the entire system. Sensors are used to measure the patient's health indicators and convert that information to electrical data. The Radio is used to transmit the data that has been processed by the control unit. One of the paramount considerations in the design is to make the device very compact and portable as well as to minimize power consumption. Tradeoffs between power and communication range need to be considered carefully. The MSP430 microprocessor from Texas Instruments is selected. It is built around a 16-bit CPU and designed for low cost, and specifically, low power embedded applications. Similarly, a low power radio transceiver will be selected and power management features will be included.