2017 IEEE International Conference on Communication, Networks and Satellite (Comnetsat)

The IoT LoRa System Design for Tracking and

Monitoring Patient with Mental Disorder
Nur Hayati Muhammad Suryanegara Department
Department of Electrical Engineering of Electrical Engineering Universitas
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Indonesia
Bantul, Indonesia Depok, Indonesia
Email: nuha.nurhayati@umy.ac.id Email: m.suryanegara@ui.ac.id

Abstract—This paper aims to propose a system design,
working on the basis of the Internet of Things (IoT) LoRa, for
tracking and monitoring the patient with mental disorder. The
system consists of a LoRa client, which is a tracking device on end
devices installed on the patient, and LoRa gateways, installed in
hospitals and other public locations. The LoRa gateways are
connected to local servers and cloud servers by utilizing both
mobile cellular and Wi-Fi networks as the communications media.
The feasibility of the system design is developed by employing the
results of our previous work on LoRa performance in the Line of
Sight (LoS) and Non-Line of Sight (Non-LoS) environments.
Discussions are presented concerning the LoRa network
performance, battery power and scalability. The future work is to
build the proposed the design in a real system scenarios.
purpose is to show the exact location of a patient when they are
away from the supervision zone. This application is expected to
minimize the potential risks that typically occur, such as
accidents due to their inability to recognize road conditions or
other public facilities. It is also intended to prevent the possibility
of suicidal actions that potentially happen due to negligence in
monitoring by related parties.
This paper comprises five sections. Section I is the
introduction; Section II presents the underlying theories and
relevance to other research works. Section III provides the
proposed system design, while Section IV discusses the
feasibility analyses. Section V concludes the paper.

Keywords—LoRa technology; IoT; mental disorder;

telemedicine; tracking system.
II. UNDERLYING THEORIES
A. The Issue of Mental Disorder
I. INTRODUCTION
The society with proper mental health conditions becomes a
The proportion of people suffering from mental disorder valuable asset of any nation. For this reason, the government, or
around the world is increasing. About 21 million people suffer another responsible party, needs to take care of and to cure people
from schizophrenia and about 35 million people from with mental disorders. The World Psychiatric Association has
depression. Additionally, there are 47.5 million people suffering proposed three strategies to treat the patient with mental disorder.
from dementia and 60 million people suffering from bipolar These were based on a survey carried out in 60 countries to find
disorder. The situation also occurs in Indonesia, where there are out the best method of reducing the quantity of people with mental
14 million adults who have mental disorders. This prevalence disorders. The first strategy is to increase the number of
number constitutes approximately 6% of the total population of psychiatrists and professionals treating people with mental
Indonesia [1]. The number of primary health care facilities disorders. The second strategy is to increase the involvement of
which are on the most accessible level for residents is 3602 units. non-specialist mental health service providers. The third strategy
Meanwhile, there are more than 247 public hospitals which have is to develop the active engagement of the common people, in
facilities for mental health services. The country has 35 particular the patients’ relevant family members [1].
government-owned psychiatric hospitals and 14 private-owned
psychiatric hospitals [1]. The Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia has
undertaken various programs to address the problem of mental
The highest potential risk of the patient with mental disorder disorder in Indonesia. These include community empowerment,
concerns suicide. According to WHO, every 40 seconds, a a service hotline number for psychiatric consultation established
person with psychiatric problems commits suicide [1]. in October 2010 (although by 2014 this service was stopped
Meanwhile, patients can lose situational awareness when they are because of the ineffectiveness of the costs and resources provided
in public places. Therefore, it is very important to develop a by the number of incoming callers), and the provision of mental
telemedicine system which facilitates a special type of care for health care facilities and professional personnel.
people with mental disorders.
A crucial issue regarding dealing with the mental disorder
This paper proposes the system design of tracking and patients is how to monitor the exact position of the patient. There
monitoring the patient with mental disorder. The system utilizes should be a technological platform which enables a tracking
the LoRa-based Internet of Things (IoT) as the main mechanism. This would also support their mobility and facilitate
communications platform of devices. The main application

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 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communication, Networks and Satellite (Comnetsat)

their activities not only in the psychiatric hospital but also in

public areas. For most cases, such a technological system also
ensures the patient is always under the supervision of their
psychiatrist or caregiver. This device is able to show the patient’s
location when they go outside of the supervision zone. Therefore
we can minimize the potential risk of any hazardous conditions.
B. Related Research Works
Research works concerning tracking services for people with
mental disorder, as well as telemedicine systems, have been
undertaken by other experts. Researchers [2] have created a
system for mental disorder's society at public transit by giving a
guidance based on location and service for tracking in order to
facilitate patient's travel independently to their workplace.
Systems are made to easily monitor the patient whether they are
stationary or moving. Given the GPS Line of Sight (LoS) signal
used in HSDPA, the researchers combined this with Wi-Fi. The
idea of this service is very well-suited to being implemented in Fig. 1. Proposed design of the tracking and monitoring system for mental
developed countries where public transportation systems are all disorder patients based on LoRa technology
covered by Wi-Fi. However, there are many countries which do
not have sophisticated mass transportation systems equipped LoRa stands for Long Range Radio, which supports the IoT
with Wi-Fi facilities. Additionally, the Wi-Fi coverage area is networks operated at the ISM frequency band of 433 MHz, 868
not too wide—only about 50 meters. This also means that a MHz, and 915 MHz. It uses the scheme of Frequency Shifting
public station needs many more wireless access network Keying, which provides an efficient modulation to achieve low
devices. power and a small error rate [7], [8]. Why choose LoRa? The
advantage of LoRa® is the technical ability to be the network
A study [3] has been carried out to support workers with platform in a long-distance communications environment.
mental disorders by using Bluetooth beacons as a medium for Moreover, LoRa also offers the advantages of its long term
video prompting and indoor path finding. A prototype was made battery performance.
to facilitate psychiatric patients in finding paths by utilizing
PDAs on their end devices. The design of their device referred The system consists of a LoRa end-device attached to the
to the spatial navigation and cognitive modeling system which patient to provide the function of tracking. This end-device
were tested on a campus site. In the prototype, data was comprises the Dragino LoRa Shield Wireless, Arduino Uno
transmitted to the user mobile device (PDA) in the form of a board, GPS sensor and Wi-Fi module which are assembled in a
navigation video which was triggered by a sensor on a Bluetooth microcontroller. There is also a single set of batteries (power
beacon. bank) as the electrical resource, directly connected to the
Arduino microcontroller. Dragino LoRa Shield Wireless
Concerning Indonesia, research [4] has reported the provide data transmission using a LoRa radio frequency on the
challenges and progress of the development of a smart telehealth ISM frequency band, either at 433 MHz, 868 MHz or 915 MHz.
system in the country. Concerning other countries, a study [5]
has compared the infrastructure and architecture of telehealth Details of the part installed on the LoRa end-device (client
systems in several countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, side) is shown in Figure 2.
Norway and Sweden. Meanwhile, concerning the IoT system
design, a previous work by Gerdes et al. [6] has focused on IoT
utilization as basic reference design for smart collaboration
services between telecare and telehealth. The researchers
observed some standards consideration is required when eHealth
system services are built. The standard components of eHealth
services encompassed several features of care environments,
namely patient side, infrastructure of health information services
and also health care sources that involve security systems [6].

III. PROPOSED SYSTEM DESIGN

This paper proposes a system design for the tracking and
monitoring of mental disorder patients by using the IoT Long
Range technology (known as LoRa). The proposed design is Fig. 2. Prototype scheme of LoRa end-device
shown in Figure 1.

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 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communication, Networks and Satellite (Comnetsat)
Fig. 3. Prototype LoRa Master as a gateway monitoring system for mental
disorder patients
On the side of the hospitals and public areas, there are LoRa
gateways covering a wide surrounding area and connected to the
local or cloud servers. Communication media between these
could be achieved by utilizing either mobile cellular or Wi-Fi
networks. The GPS sensor captures the input data of the patient’s
location information, and the Wi-Fi/cellular modules establish a
direct connection to the local or cloud server.
The server is connected to the mobile application installed in
the smartphone of the medical officer (the psychiatrist or the
caregiver) of the patient. As shown in Figure 1, the system design
requires a cloud server as a center of information processing and
data visualization, transmitted by cellular/Wi-Fi modules. Such
information could be accessed easily by doctors and caregivers
anywhere and any time they need.
The live data is transmitted in real time so that the medical
officer is able to monitor and to track the location of the patient
easily. In the hospital, a direct notification could be sent to the
medical officer when the patient is outside of the treatment area
so that patients can be taken back immediately to a safer place.
Similar to that function, such a notification could also be enabled
for the patient when they are lost in a public area.
Details of the part installed on the LoRa gateway is shown in
Figure 3. It consists of the Wireless Module esp8266 used to
connect the LoRa gateway to the server. The esp8266 module is
integrated with the Arduino board, as well as the Dragino LoRa
Shield Wireless (on the gateway side).
The mobile application for the medical officer (the
psychiatrist or caregiver) is illustrated in Figure 4. The caregiver
and psychiatrist need to put their username and password into the
application for authorization access in order to ensure the
patient’s related information remains secure. The patient’s
medical record will appear on the authorized user page. Personal
caregivers or family members can only see individual
information concerning their relation, but psychiatrists have
higher privileges to track and monitor all of the patients.
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Fig. 4. Illustration of the mobile application for medical officers
An emergency button is available in the main menu, and can
be used to inform related parties in urgent situations, such as the
patient entering a higher risk space or running away from the
hospital. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist button is a feature used to
update the patient’s condition so that the medical record
displayed on the main page represents the actual patient
information. In the bottom of the view, there is a mapping
feature used to track the patient’s current location. This mapping
requires real time updates so that the patient can be monitored
any time. This live mapping also has the advantage of helping
the caregiver by simplifying the process of finding and rescuing
the patient when they get lost in public areas.
IV. SYSTEM’S F EASIBILITY
A. Network Performance
LoRa technology was chosen as the main communications
platform because it has better coverage of the wide area network.
Our previous research has investigated the LoRa system at the
915 MHz ISM band frequency for the scenarios of LoS and Non-
Line of Sight (Non-LoS) [9]. The temperature information acts
as the main input data of the LoRa system. The results and
conclusion from that previous study are utilized for the current
proposed system design. Figure 5 shows the result of Received
Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) at the LoS and Non-LoS
conditions [9].
The test was conducted by measuring LoRa performance
where the value of Tx (client) Power is 14 dBm and the value of
Rx (master) Gateway Antenna Gain is 5 dBi. Tx (client) and Rx
(master) Polarization Antenna were installed in Vertical with
Polar Pattern Omnidirectional Antenna. Tx (client) and Rx
(master) Device Height was one meter above ground.
 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communication, Networks and Satellite (Comnetsat)

resting condition of the required electrical current is 2 ȝA, while

the listening condition it draws is 12 mA.

A severe test of battery utilization has been carried out on the

prototype system, both in the active state (transmit mode) and
the standby mode. The results of this experiment show that, in
the passive state, the power used is 1.8 mA, while in the active
state, the power used is 29 mA (RF Output Power 14 dBm). The
device used for the power supply test is a power bank with a
battery capacity of 20,000 mAh and a Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion)
battery. The battery life or battery capacity in a simple test is
calculated from the battery’s current input value and the current
load circuit. Battery life becomes longer when the current load
is lower and vice versa. Calculations of battery life can be made
using Equation 1 [11].

Fig. 5. Comparison graph of RSSI value of LoS and Non-LoS test beds in Battery Life = Battery Capacity (mAh) * 0.7 (1)
previous works [9] Device’s power Consumption (mA)

The results from the previous study [9] have indicated that Value 0.7 is an external factor that affects the battery life of
the LoRa network may feasibly be used for tracking the patient Li-Ion types. From the equation formula above, we calculated
in the outdoor environment. However, the topology test built in that the battery capacity data for LoRa in standby mode is
the system [9] utilized point-to-point topology, where there is 7,777.78 hours, or about 324 days. Then, the capacity of the
only one client with a single gateway. Meanwhile, the proposed battery for LoRa in transmit mode is 482.76 hours, or about 20
prototype would be applied in different conditions, where days. These measurement results are expected to be used as a
additional gateways are needed. The proposed system requires reference in the field implementation in real conditions.
more than one gateway placed in several public locations,
including hospitals, to encompass a broader coverage area. To establish the prototype’s ease of use, we analyze the
Hence, the proposed system will use a star topology which can weight and the possible position of the wearable device. The
also be supported by a LoRa platform. potential position is attached to the upper arm, this means the
patient can carry out their activities without major disturbance.
There are four factors to be considered with regard to the The weight is approximately 200 grams, but there is a possibility
implementation of the LoRa gateway, namely: the nodes’ that the prototype will become heavier depending on the type of
frames and the battery size used because we need to integrate the
transmission period, data rate (time on air), the length of payload
power bank as an electrical source, along with Arduino Uno and
and total concurrent channels. All of these factors are important
LoRa boards, antenna, GPS sensor and wiring configuration in
parameters in calculating the number of gateways to be installed one place. Figure 6 illustrates the wearable device attached to
in the hospital if the health facility has a large number of the patient’s body.
patients. Field trials are necessary to be realized in order to
determine the maximum number of users or patients that can be
covered by the LoRa gateway, even though LoRa has a Approximate prototype minimum weight :
200 grams
modulation system which is, theoretically, able to solve the
problem through the spread spectrum modulation [10]. In this • Power bank, if the smallest one is used
modulation, when diverse spreading factors are used, signals are (2600mAh) : 60 grams
nearly orthogonal to each other. Along with the alteration of the • Arduino Uno board : 25 grams
spreading factor, the efficiency of the data speed is different. The • LoRa board : 22 grams
LoRa gateway uses this attribute to accept multiple data with • Antenna : 25 grams
different speeds at the same time on the same channel. This • GPS module : 12 grams
capability can be used as an alternative solution in star topology • Wiring : 26 grams
implementation, as well as in the practice of determining the • Casing : 30 grams
priority scale in tracking patients who tend to often get out of the
rehabilitation area.

B. Battery Power and Scalability

Another advantage of using LoRa is that it has longer battery Fig. 6. Wearable device position and weight composition
durability. Data from Digi-Key [11] demonstrates that the

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 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communication, Networks and Satellite (Comnetsat)

Heterogeneous Long-Short Range Communication”. 2016 Euromicro

Another advantage of using LoRa technology is its Conference on Digital System Design. 200-206.
scalability feature. This feature allows stakeholders to add or [8] Bardyn, J. P., Melly, T., Seller, O., Somin, N. (2016). “IoT : The Era of
reduce infrastructure as needed. For example, when the user LPWAN is starting now”. 42nd European Solid-State Circuits Conference.
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A performance evaluation on LoS and Non-LoS environment at 915 MHz
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V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

This paper has proposed the system design for tracking and
monitoring patient with mental disorder by using the IoT LoRa-
based technological platform. The system consists of LoRa end-
device (client side) as the wearable devices attached to the
individual patient, the LoRa gateway with a star topology, the
local or cloud server and the mobile applications for the relevant
medical officers (physiatrist and caregiver). The data
communications transmission between LoRa client and gateway
sides is operated over the ISM frequency band. On the other
hand, the WiFi and mobile cellular network can be utilized for
data transmission among LoRa gateway side, server and mobile
applications. Discussions has been presented concerning the
feasibility of LoRa network performance, power battery and
scalability. Those advantages of LoRa is argued to make the
proposed design is feasible. The future work is to build and test
in real system scenario..

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