access icon openaccess Optical wireless connected objects for healthcare

In this Letter the authors explore the communication capabilities of optical wireless technology for a wearable device dedicated to healthcare application. In an indoor environment sensible to electromagnetic perturbations such as a hospital, the use of optical wireless links can permit reducing the amount of radio frequencies in the patient environment. Moreover, this technology presents the advantage to be secure, low-cost and easy to deploy. On the basis of commercially available components, a custom-made wearable device is presented, which allows optical wireless transmission of accelerometer data in the context of physical activity supervision of post-stroke patients in hospital. Considering patient mobility, the experimental performance is established in terms of packet loss as a function of the number of receivers fixed to the ceiling. The results permit to conclude that optical wireless links can be used to perform such mobile remote monitoring applications. Moreover, based on the measurements obtained with one receiver, it is possible to theoretically determine the performance according to the number of receivers to be deployed.

Inspec keywords: accelerometers; body sensor networks; optical transceivers; medical disorders; acceleration measurement; patient monitoring; biomedical measurement; health care

Other keywords: communication capabilities; mobile remote monitoring applications; accelerometer data; post-stroke patients; healthcare; experimental performance; optical wireless links; patient mobility; electromagnetic perturbations; packet loss; optical wireless connected objects; patient environment; physical activity supervision; optical wireless technology; custom-made wearable device

Subjects: Sensing devices and transducers; Velocity, acceleration and rotation measurement; Patient diagnostic methods and instrumentation; Sensing and detecting devices; Velocity, acceleration and rotation measurement; Biomedical communication; Optical communication equipment; Optical and laser radiation (medical uses); Wireless sensor networks; Optical and laser radiation (biomedical imaging/measurement)

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