On Pulse Sensor based u-Healthcare Monitoring Application with Arduino

1 Hermawan Kemis, 1 Ndibanje Bruce, 3 Hoon Jae Lee

1Department of Ubiquitous IT, Graduate School of Dongseo University, h.kemis@gmail.com 1Department of Ubiquitous IT, Graduate School of Dongseo University

bruce.dongseo.korea@gmail.com 3 Hoon Jae Lee, Division of Computer and Engineering Dongseo University,

hjlee@dongseo.ac.kr

Abstract Ubiquitous healthcare (u-Healthcare) is an emerging paradigm in the healthcare environment. One

of the most promising applications for u-Healthcare is the ubiquitous smart home and smart hospital, health monitoring system. The healthcare technology keeps healthcare executives and managers up-to-date about the latest computer-based solutions for improving medical care and making healthcare organizations more efficient. Information Technology (IT) has a unique, news-style approach to implementations at hospitals and other smart home across the country. To this end, we design and implement a healthcare monitoring application for ubiquitous sensor network. The pulse sensor uses the arduino board to send the data to the web server via RN-XV wireless module base on 802.11 protocols. The data collected from the patient can be remotely viewed and analyzed by a physician or nurse.

Keywords: Arduino, Ubiquitous Sensor Network, Sensor Pulse, Monitoring Application, Healthcare

1. Introduction

The Ubiquitous Sensor Network is nowadays emerging regarding to the world's population

ages that suffering from diseases of the elderly. In-home and nursing- home pervasive networks may assist residents and their caregivers by providing continuous medical monitoring, memory enhancement, control of home appliances, medical data access, and emergency communication. Along with the approaching of aging society, the most important issue is the long-term home healthcare service for senior citizens. Many researches in computer, networking, and medical fields are going on to make the broad vision of ubiquitous healthcare possible [1-4].

For example, the wireless body area sensor network (WBASN) is a type of wireless sensor network where the wireless sensor nodes are placed on, near, or within a human body. In a WBASNs medical healthcare system, the healthcare monitoring is continuously provided, especially of elderly or ill people, wherever the patient goes. The human vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and respiration are wirelessly sensed and processed by the nodes. The sensors node via an access point (base station) send the patient’s collected data to a medical center for data treatment and monitoring the patient’s health. Furthermore, some of them are devoted to continuous medical monitoring for degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or similar cognitive disorders [5].

Other projects such as “CodeBlue” at Harvard extend WSNs for medical applications in disasters [6]. This paper presents a design and implementation of healthcare monitoring application for ubiquitous sensor network, where patient’s collected data are continuously monitored for further physician assistances.

The system design is oriented web server where doctors or nurses can login and access data remotely, and continuous medical monitoring using wireless sensor networks. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we first introduce the architectural components of the proposed healthcare monitoring application for USN. The design and implementation is discussed in Section 3, while Section 4 presents the implementation result before concluding in Section 5.

On Pulse Sensor based u-Healthcare Monitoring Application with Arduino Hermawan Kemis, Ndibanje Bruce, Hoon Jae Lee

Journal of Next Generation Information Technology(JNIT) Volume 4, Number 9, November 2013

21

2. Architectural Components’ Design

This section describes the architecture of the proposed USN Healthcare Monitoring Application where the overview is given in Figure 1. The concept developed in our model is based web user interface application, and for wireless communication we use the Wi-Fi to transfer data from the sensor to the access point. In the terms of hardware we use the sensor pulse to measure the heart rate, arduino sensor node to support the wireless technology. Finally, the category of network is concerned by the authentication protocol, internet and the end user (Doctors/Nurses) with theirs wireless devices to monitor the patient’s data and pass the information on changes in the form of email as notification to physician and paramedics.

Figure 1. Overview of the USN Healthcare Monitoring Application

In practice case, the sensor nodes sense and process vital signs such as ECG signals, blood pressure,

body heat, and respiration. They then send the sensed/processed vital signs through a base station to the medical center for monitoring by medical professionals. The base station is a bridge or a network coordinator between the sensor network and the medical center. It carries out several different tasks. The medical professionals used their wireless devices like PDA, Mobile phones, Laptop to monitor the collected data. According to their analysis, doctors or nurses can take further decisions for healing the patient. In this paper, we focus on the pulse sensor which collects raw data of the heart rate. As shown in Figure 2 the sensor collects and analyze, obtained signals from the raw data. It transmits received data through Wi-Fi connection to the medical center. At the medical center, the Monitoring Application records, reports, and monitors the received data from the patient. The doctors analyze patient data using the software. If there is an abnormal or fluctuate situation, there is an alert and the medical center staff intervenes for the patient via emergency services with email notification to doctors who treat these patients or sensor actuators/devices such as insulin injection [4]. The users can easily access the data on a server in the medical center by using any device, such as a PC, laptop, PDA, or mobile phone connected to the Internet, using our Web Interface Application developed in Java.

Figure 2. Design of USN Healthcare Monitoring Application

On Pulse Sensor based u-Healthcare Monitoring Application with Arduino Hermawan Kemis, Ndibanje Bruce, Hoon Jae Lee

22

3. Implementation of the Monitoring Application

The implementation of the proposed Monitoring Application is divided into two major parts, the hardware set up and software development/installation. The designs and functions of the subsystems with regard to the two parts are described respectively as follows.

3.1. Hardware Set up This part concerns in hardware installation of sensor node and arduino as interface between pulse sensor and computer. In order to check if the pulse sensor can send data we using arduino we first used a USB cable from arduino to computer. Then the second step is to set Wireless arduino interface up. Figure 3 show the process of the pulse sensor set up operations.

Figure 3. Pulse sensor and Arduino set up operations

The sensor pulse is first connected to the arduino and then all the set are connected to the computer

via a usb cable. At this step the sensor pulse’s light is on, to indicate that it is ready to sense and transfer data To send the data wirelessly, the sensor pulse is connected to the wireless sensor node which uses RN-XV module base on 802.11x protocol micro controller made by Roving Networks. 3.2. Software development and installation

This subsection describes the software we used to implement the proposed Monitoring Application. When the sensor is sensing the heart rate, it sends raw data without any operations of analyzing. To make the raw data understandable by doctors or nurses, we developed software which interpret the raw data to a graph platform. The description of the algorithm is given in Figure 4 as follows

Figure 4. Analysis of Heart Rate

On Pulse Sensor based u-Healthcare Monitoring Application with Arduino Hermawan Kemis, Ndibanje Bruce, Hoon Jae Lee

23

It has been observed that changes in heart rate occur before, during, or following behavior such as posture changes, walking and running. Therefore, it is often very important to record heart rate along with posture and behavior, for continuously monitoring a patient’s cardiovascular regulatory system during their daily life activity. The algorithm of HR analysis with activity monitoring is shown in Figure 4. Analysis of HR data is done on server for HR status and activity monitoring of patient.

After calculating HR parameters, the algorithm goes for their classification for activities monitoring and HR status. If the heart rate is in between 60 and 110 bpm and the patient is in rest position then can classify as a normal condition. If heart rate is greater than 110 bpm and patient position is rest then can classify for abnormal. For more precision, abnormal or regular HR, while resting if the HR is between 60 and 100 bpm the person is an adult otherwise if HR goes to 110 he is a baby. Therefore, it is necessary to know about the patient activities during measurement of HR parameter. During moving activity of the person, an HR analysis depends on other parameters also such as blood pressure, temp etc…

In this subsection of software development and installation, we present the web user interface where the user has to sign up before log in. The monitoring application is web based and the use can login and access the data from the connected device. The interface gives easy usability and the application provides a way to get a new password in the case of forgotten.

Figure 5. The Web User Interface

Figure 5 shows the sketches of the user interface which allow doctor or nurse to access to data. The

finally user interface is the Admin panel which give the access to monitor or analyze the data from the web server. The profile menu directs the doctor or nurse to the details information of the given patient. 4. Implementation Result

In this section, a USN Healthcare Monitoring Application is implemented according to the design and functions of a Healthcare Hospital described above. The development of wireless devices is aimed at patients with heart rate measurement and Figure 4 is the entity picture of algorithm. The measurement of the heart rate is done by a sensor pulse connected to Arduino as interface between computer and the sensor pulse. And the wireless communication is done by the wireless module connected to arduino wireless shield.

On Pulse Sensor based u-Healthcare Monitoring Application with Arduino Hermawan Kemis, Ndibanje Bruce, Hoon Jae Lee

24

Figure 6. Wi-Fi set up and Heart Rate calculation code

4.1 Data Monitoring and Wireless Set Up

This subsection presents how the data is accessible from the web server to the wireless device using the web use interface. Once upon the user has log in and authenticated, he can access the data he want. The sensor pulse sends raw data and the HR algorithm translates the raw data using HR calculating the code. In the aim to send data using Wi-Fi connection we used the wireless sensor node uses RN-XV module base on 802.11 protocol micro controller made by Roving Networks. The code calculation and the Wi-Fi set up code are illustrated in the Figure 6.

4.2 Email Notification

State data record following the retrieved pulse averages pulse for 60 seconds. Pulse records the results will always be taken under normal conditions, and pulse with impaired or fluctuating. As in Figure 7 shows, an email notification will be sent, if the patients continues to experience problems with the results of the pulse under conditions or fluctuating with the pulse results in less than 60-110 BPM. Of course, in addition to notification is given, the results from pulse abnormalities will be stored in HTML as a reports.

Figure 7. Email Notification have been received

On Pulse Sensor based u-Healthcare Monitoring Application with Arduino Hermawan Kemis, Ndibanje Bruce, Hoon Jae Lee

25

4.3 Arduino Authentication Protocol

This subsection presents the authentication protocols where each sensor has to be authenticated by to the server. In this case, each sensor has its owner ID and during the implementation, the IDs are stored in the data base of the server. Once upon the sensor wants to send the data to the server, the server will process the authentication protocol, if the verification step is done and the stored parameters matched then, the sensors can starts the data transmission otherwise the sever reject the request. Figure 8 shows the authentication code where each sensor presents its owner ID.

The finally result of the HR is given in a graph platform where the doctor or nurse can easily ready it.

Figure 9 gives the result of the HR with 2 scenarios where the HR is between 60 and 110 for the first and HR is below 60 for the second.

Figure 8. Arduino Authentication Code

Figure 9. HR result with normal and fail status

For the left graphic, the patient doesn’t present any problem from the status which is normal

we can see that the HR is 97, and then the alarm condition is green which means no disease. On the right side the status is fail because the HR is under 60 in this case the doctor should take further decision for the patient. Finally the USN Monitoring Application gives the opportunity to save the report when the login session is over, Figure 10 shows an example where the report is generated and saved at the end of the session.

On Pulse Sensor based u-Healthcare Monitoring Application with Arduino Hermawan Kemis, Ndibanje Bruce, Hoon Jae Lee

26

Figure 10. HR Medical Story Report 5. Conclusion

Use of USN in medical healthcare applications is increasing these days. This paper presents a

developed program, called “USN Monitoring Application”, to monitor the heart rate status of patients at home or in Hospital. USN Monitoring Application is a web-based remote healthcare builds on senor pulse, wireless sensor and a web user interface to monitor the patient’s data. In this work, we have shown the measurement of heart beat rate values using the developed hardware and software where the result gives the status of the patient. The USN Monitoring Application has 2 important features. First, users can access it with only a web user interface browser, not needing any particular programs due to use of server technology. Second, it enables high visibility, ease of use, and flexibility for users by employing Web Figure. Moreover, it also provides users with the ability to save data and graphics.

6. Acknowledgment

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

7. References [1] M.A. Hanson, H.C. Powell Jr, A.T. Barth, K. Ringgenberg, B.H. Calhoun, J.H. Aylor, J. Lach,

“Body area sensor networks: challenges and opportunities”, IEEE Computer, Vol. 42, pp. 58-65, 2009.

[2] H. Cao, V. Leung, C. Chow, H. Chan, “Enabling technologies for wireless body area networks: survey and outlook”, IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol. 47, pp. 84-92, 2009.

[3] S. Ullah, H. Higgins, B. Braem, B. Latre, C. Blondia, I. Moerman, S. Saleem, Z. Rahman, K.S. Kwak, “A comprehensive survey of wireless body area networks on PHY, MAC, and network layers solutions”, Journal of Medical Systems, DOI: 10.1007/s10916-010-9571-3, 2010.

[4] C. Bayilmis, M. Younis, “Energy-aware gateway selection for increasing the lifetime of wireless body area sensor networks”, Journal of Medical Systems, DOI: 10.1007/s10916-010-9620-y, 2010.

[5] House_n: the Home of the Future – MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/.

[6] Harvard University. Code Blue project: Wireless Sensor Networks for Medical Care. http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~mdw/proj/codeblue/.

On Pulse Sensor based u-Healthcare Monitoring Application with Arduino Hermawan Kemis, Ndibanje Bruce, Hoon Jae Lee

27