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Design of a Wearable Remote Neonatal Health Monitoring Device

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Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2014)

Abstract

In this text we present the design of a wearable health monitoring device capable of remotely monitoring health parameters of neonates for the first few weeks after birth. The device is primarily aimed at continuously tracking the skin temperature to indicate the onset of hypothermia in newborns. A medical grade thermistor is responsible for temperature measurement and is directly interfaced to a microcontroller with an integrated bluetooth low energy radio. An inertial sensor is also present in the device to facilitate breathing rate measurement which has been discussed briefly. Sensed data is transferred securely over bluetooth low energy radio to a nearby gateway, which relays the information to a central database for real time monitoring. Low power optimizations at both the circuit and software levels ensure a prolonged battery life. The device is packaged in a baby friendly, water proof housing and is easily sterilizable and reusable.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Robert Bosch Center for Cyber Physical Systems at the Indian Institute of Science for funding support.

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Correspondence to Hiteshwar Rao .

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Rao, H. et al. (2015). Design of a Wearable Remote Neonatal Health Monitoring Device. In: Plantier, G., Schultz, T., Fred, A., Gamboa, H. (eds) Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies. BIOSTEC 2014. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 511. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26129-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26129-4_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26128-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26129-4

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