June 23, 2010
Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru
 

Final year B.Tech. (EIE) students Ashwini Mary Job, Deepika Padiyar, Kishore Sheik Ahmed and Vaishak Venkat won a best paper award for their paper titled Remote Monitoring of Patient Parameters Using Body Area Networks.
 

Presented at the National Conference on Intelligent and Efficient Electrical Systems organized recently at Sri Sai Ram Engineering College in Chennai, the students’ paper was adjudged the best paper from among thirty papers chosen for presentation at the conference.
 

The students’ paper was based on their prototype design for a WBAN or Wide Body Area Network. The project was undertaken to fulfill the requirements of a final year elective course.
 

Their teacher, Ms. K. Deepa helped students build a WBAN that featured a standard ZIGBEE compliant radio and a common set of physiological sensors.
 

“The main aim of the project was to demonstrate a wireless configuration to monitor a patient’s parameters such as heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature,” the students explained.
 

“Data from the physiological sensors about a patient’s vital body parameters was transmitted and output to a remote computer where it could be analyzed real-time.”
 

“We had the opportunity to present our ideas to people who are experts in their respective fields. We received much valuable input to further build upon this work.”
 

There is growing interest all over the world in WBANs, which when implemented, are expected to revolutionize the fields of e-health and telemedicine.
 

“We would like to thank our guide for her concern and support throughout.”
 

“The team selected the topic based on its huge potential in future medical applications,” stated the students’ guide and teacher, Ms. Deepa. “They first made a detailed survey of all requirements.”
 

“Whatever roadblocks appeared during the project, the students overcame them easily. Since they had made a sincere survey of all requirements, they had a strong foundation for the execution of the project.”
 

“The team presented the project at the conference with clarity and confidence. Most paper presentations at the conference were made either by M.Tech. or Ph.D. students. As such, it is quite remarkable that our students won the best paper award.”
 

“The scholars and the judges recognized the originality and innovation in this paper.”
 

Paper Abstract

Recent advancements in integrated circuits, wireless communications and physiological sensing allow small-size, light weight, low power and intelligent monitoring devices. A number of these devices can be integrated into a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN), a new enabling technology for reliable health monitoring.

WBAN or BAN consists of a set of movable and compact sensors, which monitor a patient’s vital body parameters. It holds the promise to become a key infrastructure element in remotely supervised patient care systems.

The aim of this project is to design a prototype WBAN which features a standard ZIGBEE compliant radio and a common set of physiological sensors. This project plans to introduce a multi-tier telemedicine system that performs real-time analysis of sensors’ data, provides guidance and feedback to the user and can generate warnings based on the user’s state, level of activity and environmental conditions. In addition, all recorded information can be transferred to medical servers via the internet and seamlessly integrated into the user’s electronic medical record and research databases.

WBAN promises an inexpensive, unobtrusive, and unsupervised monitoring of patients for prolonged periods of time.