title: A telehealth architecture for networked embedded systems: a case study in in vivo health monitoring.
abstract: The improvement in processor performance through continuous breakthroughs in transistor technology has resulted in the proliferation of lightweight embedded systems. Advances in wireless technology and embedded systems have enabled remote healthcare and telemedicine. While medical examinations could previously extract only localized symptoms through snapshots, now continuous monitoring can discretely analyze how a patient's lifestyle affects his/her physiological conditions and if additional symptoms occur under various stimuli. We demonstrate how medical applications in particular benefit from a hierarchical networking scheme that will improve the quantity and quality of ubiquitous data collection. Our Telehealth networking infrastructure provides flexibility in terms of functionality and the type of applications that it supports. We specifically present a case study that demonstrates the effectiveness of our networked embedded infrastructure in an in vivo pressure application. Experimental results of the in vivo system demonstrate how it can wirelessly transmit pressure readings measuring from 0 to 1.5 lbf/in (2) with an accuracy of 0.02 lbf/in (2). The challenges in biocompatible packaging, transducer drift, power management, and in vivo signal transmission are also discussed. This research brings researchers a step closer to continuous, real-time systemic monitoring that will allow one to analyze the dynamic human physiology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of California, LosAngeles, CA 90095 USA. dabiri@cs.ucla.edu
authors.forename: Foad
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dabiri
authors.forename: Tammara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Massey
authors.forename: Hyduke
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Noshadi
authors.forename: Hagop
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hagopian
authors.forename: C K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Majid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sarrafzadeh
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D002408:Catheters, Indwelling; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D004867:Equipment Design; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation; D013552:Swine; D018511:Systems Integration; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014160:Transducers, Pressure; D014551:Urinary Tract
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials