Wireless Sensor Networks for Monitoring Physiological Signals of Multiple Patients

This paper presents the design of a novel wireless sensor network structure to monitor patients with chronic diseases in their own homes through a remote monitoring system of physiological signals. Currently, most of the monitoring systems send patients´ data to a hospital with the aid of personal computers (PC) located in the patients´ home. Here, we present a new design which eliminates the need for a PC. The proposed remote monitoring system is a wireless sensor network with the nodes of the network installed in the patients´ homes. These nodes are then connected to a central node located at a hospital through an Internet connection. The nodes of the proposed wireless sensor network are created by using a combination of ECG sensors, MSP430 microcontrollers, a CC2500 low-power wireless radio, and a network protocol called the SimpliciTI protocol. ECG signals are first sampled by a small portable device which each patient carries. The captured signals are then wirelessly transmitted to an access point located within the patients´ home. This connectivity is based on wireless data transmission at 2.4-GHz frequency. The access point is also a small box attached to the Internet through a home asynchronous digital subscriber line router. Afterwards, the data are sent to the hospital via the Internet in real time for analysis and/or storage. The benefits of this remote monitoring are wide ranging: the patients can continue their normal lives, they do not need a PC all of the time, their risk of infection is reduced, costs significantly decrease for the hospital, and clinicians can check data in a short time.