Plug-and-play sensor node for body area networks

Abstract

Advancements in low power wireless communication and system on chip design have opened up the possibility of developing miniaturized sensor nodes. These sensors can either be deployed on the human body (non-invasive) or implanted inside it (invasive) to collect vital physiological information and wirelessly transmit it to the system database. At the system backend this data is stored, processed, analyzed, and taken action if required. In this paper we propose the hardware architecture of a low-power, low-cost, small footprint, plug & play sensor node that is suitable for monitoring the vital signs. An event driven operating system is built for the sensor node to efficiently run the house keeping tasks and communicate with the gateway. As a proof of concept, an Electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring application for body area networks using this sensor node has been developed.