Use of local intelligence to reduce energy consumption of wireless sensor nodes in elderly health monitoring systems.

Thomas Lampoltshammer,Thomas Heistracher,Tony Larsson,Stefan Plank,João Da Costa,Edison Pignaton De Freitas,Thomas Nowotny

doi:10.3390/s140304932

Abstract

The percentage of elderly people in European countries is increasing. Such conjuncture affects socio-economic structures and creates demands for resourceful solutions, such as Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), which is a possible methodology to foster health care for elderly people. In this context, sensor-based devices play a leading role in surveying, e.g., health conditions of elderly people, to alert care personnel in case of an incident. However, the adoption of such devices strongly depends on the comfort of wearing the devices. In most cases, the bottleneck is the battery lifetime, which impacts the effectiveness of the system. In this paper we propose an approach to reduce the energy consumption of sensors' by use of local sensors' intelligence. By increasing the intelligence of the sensor node, a substantial decrease in the necessary communication payload can be achieved. The results show a significant potential to preserve energy and decrease the actual size of the sensor device units.

Highlights

The elderly population in many European countries is increasing
No sleep modes are used in the devices so that the energy consumption is proportional to the use of current and time
This paper analysed the effects of different levels of local intelligence to reduce energy consumption of wireless sensor nodes used to monitor the health of elderly people

Summary

Introduction

The elderly population in many European countries is increasing. This is due to decreasing birth rates, increasing living and medical standards, coupled with higher incomes for the group of above 60 years to that they can afford more healthy food and perform stimulating activities from which their health benefits [1,2]. According to health care companies and home care institutions, injuries from falls represent the major health issue among elderly people. Falling represents a severe issue for elderly people and has a prominent position among health care issues due to its frequency and the associated health care costs [3]. Besides possible deaths caused by falls, other related concerns are non-fatal injuries [4], fear of falling again [5] and the loss of an independent life [6]

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