MICROCONTROLLER BASED WIRELESS PATIENT MONITORING
SYSTEM
S.Ramanan, III Year, Dept of BME,ACE,Hosur
Email id: ramananbiomedical@gmail.com
Abstract-The increasing request of patients,
suffering of chronic diseases, who wish to stay
at home rather than in a hospital and also the
increasing need of homecare monitoring for
elderly people, have lead to a high demand of
wearable medical devices. Also, extended
patient monitoring during normal activity has
become a very important target. Low power
consumption is essential in continuously
monitoring of vitalsigns and can be achieved
combining very high storage capacity, wireless
communication, and ultra-low power circuits
together with firmware management of power
consumption. This approach allows the patient
to move unconstraint around an area, city or
country. In this paper the design of ultra low
power wireless monitoring devices based on
ultra low power circuits, high storage memory
flash, bluetooth communication and the
firmware for the management of the monitoring
device are presented. The proposed system uses
PIC18F4550 microcontroller for patient
monitoring system.
Index Terms—healthcare, telemedicine, low
power microcontroller, wireless interface
modules.
I. INTRODUCTION
Phenomena of ageing population observed in
most developed countries [1] and prevalence of
chronic diseases have increased the need for
chronic and geriatric care at home [2]. The task
of patient monitoring may be achieved by
telemedicine (enabling medical information-
exchange as the support to distant-decision-
making) and telemonitoring (enabling
simultaneous distant-monitoring of a patient and
his vital functions) both having many
advantages over traditional practice. Doctors
can receive information that has a longer time
span than a patient’s normal stay in a hospital
and this information has great long-term effects
on home health care, including reduced
expenses for healthcare. Despite the increased
interest in this area, a significant gap remains
between existing sensor network designs and
the requirements of medical monitoring. Most
telemonitoring networks are intended for
deployments of stationary devices that transmit
acquired data at low data rates and rather high
power consumption. By outfitting patients with
wireless, wearable vital sign devices, collecting
detailed real-time data on physiological status
can be greatly simplified. But, the most
important effect is the widely social integration
of peoples with disabilities or health problems
that need discrete and permanent monitoring.
It is well known that Bluetooth represents a
reliable and easy solution for signal
transmission from a portable, standalone unit to
a nearby computer or PDA [3]. When a real
time rudimentary analysis program detects
pathological abnormality in the recorded data an
alert is sent to the telemonitoring centre via
internet or GSM/GPRS using a PDA or
computer. The needs of the society and market
trend suggest that healthcare-related
applications will be developed significantly.
Particularly, PDA phones interfaced with
wearable sensors have an enormous market as
they will enlarge the goal of healthcare and
mobile devices [4]. The development of ultra
low power wearable monitoring
device unit is propounded. The main functions
of the wearable device consist in signal
acquisition, rudimentary processing, local data
storage and transmission to the remote
care centre. In Fig.1, the general architecture of
the telemonitoring network is presented.
Fig. 1. The general structure of telemonitoring network
This paper presents the initial results and our
experiences for a prototype medical wearable
device for patient monitoring taking into
account some hardware and software aspects
regarding vital signs measurement, robustness,
reliability, power consumption, data rate,
security and integration in a telemonitoring
network.
II.WIRELESS MONITORING DEVICE
The monitoring device is build using custom
developed hardware and application software.
The block diagram is
presented in Fig. 2 [7]. Low power amplifiers
and sensor are connected to the device [6], for
vital parameters acquisition. The health
parameters acquired are: heart rate, respiratory
rate, blood pressure and body temperature. The
monitoring device includes also a custom made
3-lead ECG amplifier. The digital board
includes an ultra low power microcontroller and
interface circuits for keyboard, SD/MMC card
and Bluetooth. The low power sensors for the
above mentioned parameters are connected to
the digital board using digital port or specific
converters. The microcontroller used in this
proposed system is PIC18F4550.
program and USB interface. The UART
interface enables wireless interface such as
Bluetooth and use of Zigbee module.
III.CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION
The temperature sensor, Respiration sensor,
ECG electrodes, pressure sensors forms the
sensing unit of the circuit. They pickup the
electric potentials from the body and then they
are amplified using power amplifiers. These
amplified analog signals contain noise and
unwanted signal interferences. These
interferences are removed by using low pass
filter. Then the filtered analog input signals are
required to convert to digital signals since they
are processed in a computer or anyother
applications involving digital forms. The
microcontroller performs various functions like
storing data, feeding programs through RS 232
interface or wireless interface like Bluetooth,
and their important function is to convert analog
input signals to digital signals.
The PIN diagram of the microcontroller is
presented in the Fig. 3

Temperature
sensor

Pressure sensor Amplifier Low pass filter

Respiration Amplifier Low pass filter

sensor

ECG Electrodes Amplifier Low pass filter

Microcontroller
Graphical LCD PIC18F4550 with ADC
Display

RS232 Interface/ Fig. 3 PIN diagram of PIC 18F4550 microcontroller

Bluetooth/Zigbee
module
The features of the PIC 18F4550
microcontroller is given as follows:
Features
 Full Speed USB 2.0 (12Mbit/s) interface
Computer
 1K byte Dual Port RAM + 1K byte GP
RAM
Fig. 2. The block diagram of microcontroller based  Full Speed Transceiver
Patient monitoring system  16 Endpoints (IN/OUT)
The microcontroller has many advantages  Streaming Port
including on chip analog to digital convertor,  Internal Pull Up resistors (D+/D-)
multiple inputs, memory storage, FLASH type  48 MHz performance (12 MIPS)
  Pin-to-pin compatible with PIC16C7X5 physiological parameters mentioned in the
previous section and also to perform
rudimentary digital signal processing on board.
The specifications of the microcontroller can be The signals are continuously recorded in
given as follows: separate files on flash memory for feature
analysis. Once pathological abnormality is
Parameter Name Value detected, the monitoring device requests a
Program Memory Type Flash transmission through PC or PDA to the remote
Program Memory (KB) 32 care centre.
CPU Speed (MIPS) 12 For the temperature measurement [9],
RAM Bytes 2,048 thermistors are used that measures the
Data EEPROM (bytes) 256 temperature of the patient. For respiration rate
Digital Communication 1-A/E/USART, measurement, displacement method is adopted
Peripherals 1-MSSP(SPI/I2C) that uses displacement sensors which is placed
Capture/Compare/PWM 1 CCP, 1 ECCP in the thoracic region or abdomen region.
Peripherals The pressure sensors measures the blood
pressure of the blood. These analog input
Timers 1 x 8-bit, 3 x 16-
signals are fed into the signal conditioning part
bit
of the system that includes amplifiers [10] and
ADC 13 ch, 10-bit
filter circuits. After signal conditioning, the
Comparators 2
analog signals are converted to digital signals
USB (ch, speed, 1, Full Speed,
using the microcontroller. Then the
compliance) USB 2.0
microcontroller produce output in a computer
Temperature Range (C) -40 to 85 system through serial port interface, through
Operating Voltage Range 2 to 5.5 Bluetooth interface,or using Zigbee modules
(V) such as CC2500 or standard IEEE 802.15.4 is
Pin Count 40 selected as the wireless transmission standard.
Methodology is important to achieve a major
Table1. Specifications of PIC 18F4550 microcontroller
goal with reliability, predictability. Accordingly
a new system is to be developed. So as to design
PIC 18F4450 is a 16/ 32 –bits microcontroller such system with predictable results in a
based on supporting real- time simulation, predictable time embedded system software is
which is attached with 32kB embedded high- used to make most effective & wide variety
speed Flash memory, 128-bit wide memory system.. The PIC would be programmed using
interface and a unique acceleration structure, it embedded C software developed by Kiel
can make the 32-bit code run at maximum microvision-3. Then the PIC microcontroller
Clock speed. Smaller packages and lower power transmits or receives signals through wireless
consumption makes the PIC 18F 4450 suitable modules either Bluetooth or wireless
for access to controllers and POS machines and transceivers or using Zigbee modules. [8] The
other small-scale application systems. Due to real time signals would be transmitted / received
provided with a wide range of inset serial by RF transreceiver modules. Real time location
communication interface (2 UART, SPI, SSP, of the event is very important and valuable
and two I2C) and 8KB chip SRAM, PIC piece of information so as to make real time
18F4450 is also suitable for use in decisions. It is beneficial for fault tolerant,
communications gateways and protocol routing, aggregation, event detection, & so on.
converters. 32/16 bit timer, enhanced 10-bit
ADC, timer PWM output matching Monitoring and control is the core of the real-
characteristics, up to 13 edges, level-triggered
time monitoring system for patient physical
external interrupts, 32 high-speed GPIO, make
states, and it can dispose , display , save ,query
PIC 18F4450 microcontrollers particularly
and analyze the data from each patient. To know
suitable for medical system.
the physical states of inpatient, the physical
parameters need to be monitored real –time.
IV.FUNCTIONALITY
With the increase in the number senior citizens
The ultra low power wireless monitoring device
and chronic diseases, the number of elderly
is able to acquire simultaneously the
patients who need constant assistance has
increased. One key point of all critical care for
elderly patient is the continuous monitoring of
their vital signs. The results prove that the
mobility, usability and performance of our
proposed system have impacts on the user’s
attitude, and there is a significant positive
relation between the user’s attitude and the
intent to use our proposed system. This
proposed system is expected to monitor the
electrical activity of heart of the patient under
critical care more conveniently and accurately
for diagnosing which can be interfaced with PIC
18F4450 to bring it under a network system
widely for the doctor to monitor the patients
condition sitting in his own office without being
physically present near to the patients bed.
Wireless – networked embedded device
includes signal conditioning circuitry, sensors
and a PIC controller with a wireless Transceiver
module( CC2500). To measure or monitor
human movements or activities, a graphical
LCD display is selected for its low price, small
size, capability of continuous measurement, and
ease of integration.[8] IEEE 802.15.4 is selected
as the wireless transmission standard because of
its short-range, low-cost, and low power
characteristics. This system can not only realize
accurate measurement of indicators, but also
save the patients travel between home and the
hospital.
V.CONCLUSION
The research and design of embedded pulse
monitoring instrument overcome the
shortcoming of traditional pulse diagnosis
system. The instrument has simple structure
stable and reliable operation, high accuracy, low
power consumption, good portability full
featured function, and extensive application
occasion.
The real time monitoring system for cardiac
patient physical state is based on wireless
transceiver module technology. It can be taken
by patient and keep the patient moment intact
because it is miniature and portable. The system
can monitor and record the physical states and
moment parameters real time, and the provide
auxilary means for the correct diagnosis of
doctor. With intelligent transceiver module , the
sign of acute disease for patient can be found
early, and then the patient can be helped in time,
the sudden death of patient can be avoided. The
wireless transreceiver module technology can be
suited for short distance communication, and the
transmission distance is limited only about 10
meters, and then It can be suitable for in- patient
monitoring. The system is important to be
applied to patient care. This proposed system
has many advancements that includes the
monitoring of patients through mobile phone by
wireless connectivity in phone such as
Bluetooth,GSM,etc. Thus this proposed system
enhances further advancements in biomedical
field for patient health care.
REFERENCES
[1] United Nations Population Division Department of Economic and
Social Affairs
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/aging99/a99pwld.htm
[2] United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Report
on
the World Social Situation 2007
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/rwss07_fullreport.pdf
[3] K. Hung, “Wearable Medical Devices for Tele-Home Healtcare”
Proceedings of the 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE
EMBS, CA, USA September 1-5, 2004.
[4] K.J. Liszka, “Keeping a beat on the heart” IEEE Pervasive
Computing
vol.3 number 4 october – December 2004, p.42.
[5] R. G. Lupu, “Solution for home care monitoring via GSM network”,
master degree thesis, University of Naples ”Federico II”, Dept. Of
Electronic Engineering and Telecommunucations, Biomedical
Engineering Unit, 2003.
[6] C. Rotariu, R. G. Lupu, “An ultra low power monitoring device for
telemedicine”, 1st National Symposium on e-Health and
Bioengineering, EHB 2007, 16th November, 2007, IASI, ROMANIA.
[7] Custom build using low power Texas Instruments technology
http://www.ti.com
[8] F2M03GLA is a Low power embedded Bluetooth™ v2.0+EDR
module with built-in high output antenna. Available:
http://www.free2move.net/index.php?type=view&pk=24&pk_langua
ge=1&PHPSESSID=dc94542acd247be5916d98a1f5d088b9
[9] The TMP102 is a two-wire, serial output temperature sensor
available
in a tiny · SOT563 package.
http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tmp102.pdf
[10] The INA322 family is a series of low cost, rail-to-rail output,
micropower CMOS instrumentation amplifiers that offer widerange,
single-supply, as well as bipolar-supply operation.