Wi-Fi Heart Rate Monitor Set to Revolutionize Medical Care (and Military Operations)?
A group of engineers at the University of Utah have developed a heart monitor that runs off a wireless network.
Assistant professor of electrical engineering Neal Patwari led the group of engineers who surrounded a hospital bed with 20 wireless transmitters on a 2.4GHz band.
The system detected a single person taking 0.4 to 0.2 breaths per minute based on only 30 seconds data, compared to most monitors rounding off values to the nearest full breath-per-minute.
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The system became even more legitimate because it passed its accuracy test against a carbon dioxide monitor connected to the patient’s nostrils by tubes.
Some say the Wi-Fi based monitoring system would be more comfortable for patients who are used to having a wire-sensor taped to their finger. However, the system comes with a few cons. It has been noted to sometimes mistaken the movement of a patient instead of their heart rate. So patients will be expected to stay still at all times during its operation.
The system will also need a minimum of 13 wireless transmitters, plus the error rate drops to zero when 19 nodes are in use.
The system could have a good number of uses in the medical field. It could be used to monitor a host of heart related illnesses, including heart disease and sleep apnea. Since the system can be made with widely available wireless hardware, it can be developed with little cost.
Patwari and his team are currently researching different radio frequencies that could raise the accuracy of the system. It is also being tested to see if it is capable of monitoring two people breathing at different rates.
The researchers estimate that the technology could enter homes in the next five years. The system could even be utilized by the military or SWAT to detect the number of heartbeats inside a building during a crime.
