Embedded system-based mobile patient monitoring device

This paper describes the design of a mobile medical device that can be used to monitor the human temperature and blood pressure (BP) using a stand-alone single chip microcontroller. The device hardware architecture consists of temperature and pressure sensors, signal conditioning circuits (SCC), single chip microcontroller, LCD display and GSM modem. An embedded software algorithm acquires temperature and pressure, processes, transmits, displays and stores it in the built-in EPROM of the microcontroller. A preset trigger level for the temperature and/or the BP is stored in the EEPROM of microcontroller. Once the desired programmed trigger level of any of the signal is reached, the microcontroller downloads the current value of the temperature and BP to the GSM modem. Then, GSM automatically dials presorted mobile number/s and transmits both parameters as a normal mobile message to a physician, nurse and/or emergency personal. A short database containing these parameters are collected and stored in a lookup table. This database can be used to track the patient temperature and BP history if needed.