Abstract
Elderly fall detection systems based on wireless body area sensor networks (WBSNs) have increased significantly in medical contexts. The power consumption of such systems is a critical issue influencing the overall practicality of the WBSN. Reducing the power consumption of these networks while maintaining acceptable performance poses a challenge. Several power reduction techniques can be employed to tackle this issue. A human vital signs monitoring system (HVSMS) has been proposed here to measure vital parameters of the elderly, including heart rate and fall detection based on heartbeat and accelerometer sensors, respectively. In addition, the location of elderly people can be determined based on Global Positioning System (GPS) and transmitted with their vital parameters to emergency medical centers (EMCs) via the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network. In this paper, the power consumption of the proposed HVSMS was minimized by merging a data-event (DE) algorithm and an energy-harvesting-technique-based wireless power transfer (WPT). The DE algorithm improved HVSMS power consumption, utilizing the duty cycle of the sleep/wake mode. The WPT successfully charged the HVSMS battery. The results demonstrated that the proposed DE algorithm reduced the current consumption of the HVSMS to 9.35 mA compared to traditional operation at 85.85 mA. Thus, an 89% power saving was achieved based on the DE algorithm and the battery life was extended to 30 days instead of 3 days (traditional operation). In addition, the WPT was able to charge the HVSMS batteries once every 30 days for 10 h, thus eliminating existing restrictions involving the use of wire charging methods. The results indicate that the HVSMS current consumption outperformed existing solutions from previous studies.
Highlights
Falls of elderly people are common in houses, hospitals, and health care centers, with 30 percent of falls leading to harm or injury
The proposed system was used for monitoring the acceleration and heart rate (HR) measurement of a patient, and used to send a text message to the emergency medical centers (EMCs) to alert them when a patient fall or any other event has occurred
The human vital signs monitoring system (HVSMS) consists of a microcontroller, Global Positioning System (GPS) module, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) module, ACC sensor, and HB sensor; these components are assembled in the power electronic board and connect to two
Summary
Falls of elderly people are common in houses, hospitals, and health care centers, with 30 percent of falls leading to harm or injury. Nineteen percent of falls happen during movement from one location to another, and 84 percent occur in hospital rooms. The areas near beds and chairs are the locations of the majority of falls [1]. Most elderly people who fall during daily activities require special care, which limits their movement. The falls generally occur during elderly movement. Monitoring the vital signs of patients or elderly people, such as fall detection during daily activities using wireless body area sensor networks (WBSNs) after they are discharged from hospital, is important for achieving
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