On Improving the Energy Efficiency of a Sensor Node in Multi-Patient Monitoring System

Abstract

In this contemporary world the need of monitoring multiple patients at a time in hospitals has risen much higher than before. This makes a tremendous growth in the health care systems. The multi-patient monitoring system uses wireless sensor networks for monitoring the health of the patient and capturing their heath parameters. This paper proposes several ways for increasing the reliability and reducing the power consumption of real time multi-patient monitoring system. These sensor nodes collect data at regular intervals, then convert the data as electrical signals and finally send those signals to the base node. Twenty remote nodes and one central node with PC-based graphical user interface are considered. Sleep strategies and other power saving mechanisms are adopted to achieve the goal of low power consumption. The sleep – wake schedule is introduced to reduce the time and power when the sensors are idle. In terms of efficiency and reliability the multi-patient monitoring system has proved much better than single patient monitoring systems which are currently used in hospitals. This leads to better treatment in hospitals by giving appropriate treatments at the right time to the patients.

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), Sleep-wake monitoring, Energy Efficiency, Wireless nodes.