A Heartbeat and Temperature Measuring System for Remote Health Monitoring using Wireless Body Area Network

This paper presents the design and development of a microcontroller based heartbeat and body temperature monitor using fingertip and temperature sensor. The device uses the optical technology to detect the flow of blood through the finger and offers the advantage of portability over conventional recording systems. However, wireless body area network based remote patient monitoring systems have been presented with numerous problems including efficient data extraction and dynamic tuning of data to preserve the quality of data transmission. Evaluation of the device on real signals shows accuracy in heartbeat measurement, even under intense physical activity. This paper presents these challenges as well as solution to these problems by proposing an architecture which allows a network to be formed between the patient and doctor in order to enable remote monitoring of patient by analyzing the data of patient. The device consists of sensors which are used to measure heartbeat as well as body temperature of a patient and it is controlled by a central unit. The readings from these sensors are further processed and sent via GSM module to a remote location where it is displayed on cell phone. The optical heartbeat sensor counts the heartbeat per minute and temperature sensor measures the temperature from the body and both the measured data are sent to a receiving end utilizing wireless technology where the data is displayed in a cell phone for further processing and patient care. Moreover, the superiority of this device is shown in comparison to traditional system.