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ECG Monitoring System Using Wireless Sensor

Network (WSN) for Home Care Environment

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Norsheila Fisal Rozeha A Rashid

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 ECG Monitoring System Using Wireless Sensor
Network (WSN) for Home Care Environment

Prof. Dr. Norsheila Fisal,

Department of Telecommunication and Optics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University
Teknologi Malaysia
(email: sheila@fke.utm.my)
Rozeha Abd Rashid,
Department of Telecommunication and Optics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University
Teknologi Malaysia
(email: rozeha@fke.utm.my)
Mohd Adib Sarijari,
Department of Telecommunication and Optics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University
Teknologi Malaysia
(email: adib_sairi@yahoo.com)
Haslinah Mohd Nasir,
Department of Telecommunication and Optics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University
Teknologi Malaysia
(email: haslinah_mn@yahoo.com)

ABSTRACT

The recent year has witnessed a significant surge of interest in sensing and monitoring in
healthcare. The monitoring and acquisition of patients’ physiological information are quite
crucial for the further treatment. Many patients can benefit from continuous monitoring as a part
of a diagnostic procedure, optimal maintenance of a chronic condition or during supervised
recovery from an acute event or surgical procedure. Wireless Sensor Network is becoming a
promising technology for various applications. One of its potential deployments is in the form
of wireless biomedical sensor network (WBSN) for wirelessly monitoring patients’
physiological signals (EEG, ECG, GSR, blood pressure, blood flow, glucose level, etc.)
measured by wearable or implantable biosensors. WBSN, unlike wired monitoring systems,
allows unobtrusive ubiquitous monitoring of patients’ physiological states and can generate
early warnings if received signals deviate from predefined personalized ranges. In this paper, we
propose a WBSN node platform featuring a low cost ECG sensor, sensor board to amplify,
sample and filter the signal, a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) and also IEEE
802.15.4 based wireless sensor nodes which protocol offers multi-hop communication
capability, hence providing an unlimited range of communication. As a case study, a 3-lead
Electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor is developed and integrated with the WBSN node for
preliminary evaluation.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Network, biosensor, IEEE 802.15.4 standard, multi-hop

communication

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 1. Introduction

Throughout the decade, there were a number of attempts to develop medical information
systems which are reliable, affordable and accessible over the entire hospital and beyond. The
situation is made possible today with the development in the web-based technology, powerful
personal computer (PC) technology, international standards and broadband telecommunication
networks. These factors also have enabled data from a wide range of medical equipment, such
as electronic stethoscope and ECG machine, to be connected into a common information
environment. Research which aims to provide continuous monitoring of patients outside the
hospital environment also needs to be developed. The potential applications will save lives,
create valuable data for medical research, and cut the cost of medical services. One scenario is
the monitoring of people who suffer from heart problems who are left alone at home without
any supervision and may suffer an attack anytime. Sensor network, in the form of wireless
biomedical sensor network (WBSN), [1] provides the technology that is a potential solution to
this problem. WBSN composed of a number of biomedical sensor nodes and multi-hop
networking capability that can be deployed for long term and continuous healthcare monitoring.
Physiological signals (ECG, EEG etc) will be measured by the biosensors that provide alerts
immediately when abnormalities in a patient’s physiological condition are detected. The
wireless link is utilized to fulfil the need for patient mobility in home healthcare and to transmit
real-time medical information and warning within an acceptable time limit for critical life cases,
especially when more than one sensor are interconnected. Currently, there are projects that
deploy wireless communication infrastructure for remote medical care environment such as in
[2],[4] and CodeBlue [3]. This paper describes the design of WBSN node platform that is
capable of supporting ECG monitoring. The platform adopts IEEE 802.15.4 standards for its
reliable wireless communication and multi-hop capability. XBee module, an IEEE 802.15.4
compliant transceiver is chosen due to its features that satisfy the unique needs of low-cost,
easy-to-use, minimal power requirement of wireless sensor network and reliable delivery of
critical data between devices [5]. The design of this monitoring system is for home-care
environment and is generally divided into three parts as shown in Fig 1, which is the data
acquisition part, the data terminal part and the data processing part that will be explained in the
following sections. This paper will also address the hardware and software development and
integration.

Fig 1 : Overall System

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 2. Methodology

2.1 Data acquisition (DAQ) and data terminal

The data acquisition part of the monitoring system concerns with the development of ECG
sensor board which consists of ECG electrodes and signal amplifying circuits. The task is to
acquire the data (heart signal) from the human body, amplify and filter the signal before it is
sent to its destination. The second part of the project is the data terminal that consists of
microcontroller circuits for handling the acquired data and then transmitting it to the data
processing part. It receives the heart signal in analog form and then converts it to digital signals
with 8 bit resolution and a sampling rate of 500 Hz before sending it to the personal computer
(PC). Simple routing mechanism is also implemented to enable multi-hop communication and
thus ensuring the data reaches its destination via intermediate sensor nodes regardless of the
distance of the patient from the base station (PC). The sensor node in Fig 2 was designed to
continuously transmitting the signal wirelessly to the base station. The sensor gathers useful
patient ECG data and these signals have to be amplified due to the reason that signals acquired
from human body are generally weak, ranging from 0.5 mV to 5.0 mV. The amplified signals
are then filtered for noise removal.

Figure 2: Sensor node

2.2 XBEE module (IEEE 802.15.4 protocol)-WBSN

The routing protocol used in this system is Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing
(AODV) which is a novel algorithm for the operation of such ad-hoc networks. This algorithm
is quite suitable for a dynamic self -starting network as required by users wishing to utilize ad-
hoc networks. AODV provides loop-free routes even while repairing broken links [6]. The
routing frame (network frame) was created in order to provide broadcast function to wireless
devices and also to test the system prototype. The frame identification (id) created is as shown
in Fig 3.

Fig 3: network frame

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The source node (patient’s node) will first broadcast route request (RREQ) packet across the
network. A node receiving the RREQ may send a route reply (RREP) if it is either the
destination or if it has a route to the destination. If the destination address is similar to the id
module then the data will be forwarded. Otherwise the node will rebroadcast the RREQ until it
found its desired route to the destination as shown in Fig 4.

Fig 4: Data transmission through broadcasting

2.3 Base Station

Vital ECG data from the patient is relayed using the AODV multi-hop routing scheme to the
base station, the PC. The PC functions as the data processor. It is used to reconstruct the ECG
signals from the digitized signals. The base station receiver module as shown in Fig 5 is
connected to the PC via RS232, a serial communication interface. It receives the sent data from
the microcontroller wirelessly and transmitted it serially to the PC to be processed and displayed
in the form of reconstructed ECG analog signals using the built Graphical User Interface (GUI).
The user friendly GUI is programmed using Visual Basic6.0 and able to receive packet
information in real time. The raw packet data stream is then decoded and plotted on
the screen. The heart rate pattern displayed on the PC helps to detect any abnormalities
such as sinus bradycardia or sinus tachycardia.

Fig5: Base station receiver module

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 3. Performance Evaluation

3.1 Prototype of ECG Sensor Board

A standard 3-lead ECG sensor board was developed as shown in Fig 6. The board is interfaced
with the microcontroller (PIC 18F452) through an ADC input pin (Port A) [7]. The signal from
the sensor board will be converted to digital and sent to the base station receiver module.

Fig 6: ECG sensor board

3.2 Power Budget

The power budget of microcontroller and the transceiver of each node are listed as in Table 1.

TABLE 1. Node Power Budget

Microcontroller: (2-5.5)V Transceiver (2.8-3.4)V

Standby: < 0.2µA Power down: < 10µA

5V operation: < 1.6mA (4MHz) Transmit: 45mA(@3.3V)

3V operation: 25µA (32kHz) Receive/Idle: 50mA(@3.3V)

Refer to the Table 1 [5], [7]. We assume the operation voltage for the node is 3.3V. The
description of the states for the node is as follows:

Power down mode: the node is not operating at this mode. The current is 10µA and the power
is 33µW (10µ x 3.3V)

Transmit mode: the data transmission by the transceiver is active and microcontroller is in 3V
operation. The current is 45mA and the power is 148.5mW.

Receive mode: everything is off except the transceiver receive mode and the microcontroller 3V
operation. The current is 50mA and the power is 165mW.

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 3.3 Results

A prototype of the ECG monitoring was constructed on PCB for testing. Validation of the
system as a whole requires several complementary efforts. These include calculation of correct
sampling of the signal, and human studies to assess system performance in real-world settings.
There are three types of heart rate condition which are; sinus rhythm, sinus bradycardia and
sinus tachycardia. Usually heart rate is calculated as the number of contractions (heart beats) of
the heart in one minute and expressed as "beats per minute" (bpm). Sinus rhythm is a term that
describes a normal heart beat which is characterized by a usual rate between 60 bpm to 100
bpm. On the other hand, sinus tachycardia describes a fast heart rate at more than 100 bpm. For
sinus bradycardia, the heart rate is below 60 bpm [5]. Preliminary evaluation of system
performance is carried out using a patient simulator by DNI Nevada Inc. (Fig 7).

Fig 7: Patient simulator

Fig 8 to Fig 10 show the plotted ECG signals at the base station (PC) as transmitted from the
patient simulator at the source node. Fig 8 clearly displays a normal heart condition with a heart
rate in the range of 60 bpm to 100 bpm. The GUI also has features such as patient’s data entry
and an analysis button for diagnosis. An alert signal will appear if any abnormalities are
detected.

Fig 8: Normal sinus rhythm

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Whereas Fig 9 shows a sample of ECG signal of a patient with an abnormal heart rate, below 60
bpm, known as sinus bradycardia. Similarly, Fig 10 also illustrates a heart rate abnormality, a
sinus tachycardia, a condition when the heart rate exceeds 100 bpm.

Fig 9: Sinus bradycardia

Fig 10: Sinus tachycardia

These preliminary results indicate the functionality of the overall designed WBSN node
platform. The acquired heart rate patterns of the patient at home can be easily relayed to remote
handheld computers or PDAs carried by medical personnel via the PC that can be assigned as a
gateway to the Internet. Refer again to Fig 4. In planning, the measured bio-medical data from
the home-based monitoring system will also be transmitted through the Internet, towards the
appropriate Hospital Health Monitoring Center (HHMC), where this data will be integrated with
the permanent medical data of the given patient. Therefore, the medical personnel at HHMC
will be able to monitor various vital signs at any desired time. Should the readings suggest any
adverse health situations, medical instructions can be given and actions can be taken before the
situations deteriorate. This smart home health monitoring is expected to help older people or the
patients with chronic disorders to live on their own longer.

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 4. Conclusions

The monitoring and acquisition of patients’ physiological information are quite crucial for the
further treatment. We have developed a WBSN node platform for ECG monitoring with a
satisfactory functionality and can be used to capture real-time vital signs from patients. The
relay of data from home environment to remote handheld computers or PDAs carried by
physicians for diagnosis is under development. The implemented WBSN node platform can
serve as a research platform for further study and evaluation of WBSN and its
challenges which include issues such as wireless networking protocols, power-efficient
topologies, frequency selection, bandwidth efficiency, routing and security.

References

[1] Chen Xijun, Max Q.-H Meng, Ren Hongliang, “Design of Sensor Node Platform for
Wireless Biomedical Sensor Network”, Proceedings of IEEE 27th Annual Conference
Engineering in Medicine and Biology, Shanghai, China, September 1-4, 2005.
[2] R. Fensli, E. Gunnarcon, O. Hejlesen, “A Wireless ECG System for Continuous Event
Recording and Communication to a Clinical Alarm Station”, Proceedings of Annual
International Conference IEEE EMBS, September 2004.
[3] David Malan, Thaddeus Fulford-Jones, Matt Welsh, Steve Moulton, “Codeblue: An Ad-hoc
Sensor Network Infrastructure for Emergency Medical Care”, International Workshop on
Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks, April 2004.
[4] J. Muhlsteff, O. Such, R. Schmidt, M. Perkuhn, H. Reiter, J. Lauter, J. Thijs, G. Musch, M.
Harris, Wearable Approach for Continuous ECG – and Activity Patient-Monitoring,
Proceedings of IEEE 26th Annual Conference Engineering in Medicine and Biology,
September 2004
[5] XBEE OEM RF modules, Product manual v1.xax-802.15.4 Protocol MaxStream.Inc,
(2006.10.13), www.maxstream.net
[6] Charles E. Perkins, Elizabeth M. Royer, Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing,
Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications,
New Orleans, LA, February 1999, pp. 90-100
[7] PIC18FXX2 Datasheet, Microchip (2007.12.12),www.microchip.com

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