Design and validation of wearable wireless sensors

Abstract

Recent years have seen an increase in research and development efforts towards wearable and implantable health monitoring systems. Such systems are needed to provide real-time information about patients to physicians, care-givers, emergency personnel and relatives. The challenge lies in their designing as they need to satisfy a variety of criteria and constraints. These include small weight and size, low power consumption, easy to use, and should be aesthetically pleasing. Advances in semiconductor fabrication have made commercially available highly integrated systems-on-chip (SOC) which are being exploited to develop such systems. Use of these SOCs reduces cost and development time. This dissertation presents system prototypes that can capture human body motion, measure strain on bones and perform electromyography (EMG). Design of these systems is centered on ultra-low power microcontrollers and other required circuit components. We present in detail their design, functionality and compare our results with present solutions.