RFID & WSN based integrated maternity ward monitoring system

New born infant kidnapping is a prevailing and horrific crime in governmental run hospitals in major cities and towns around Pakistan. In order to tackle this problem a novel idea of using Wireless Sensors Network (WSN) supported by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is proposed. The working model recommends a Trigger (passive PIRs) based video motes sensors installed at various concealed points, ubiquitously deployed in and around the maternity or nursery ward; while new born babies are tagged with RFID heel-bands. This paper principally covers the WSN aspect of the project and only gives functioning concepts of the RFID portion. The Zigbee transceiver selected for the solution was ATMEL´s ATZB-A24-UFL with the controller, ATmega164p. The WSN ad-hoc network is based on a mesh topology allowing for hoping of data between motes extending the communication radius. The video provides an effective and energy efficient way of transmitting jpegs at 4fps passive and 1 frame per 12 second for active monitoring. The nodes are extremely cost efficient especially compared to Commercial of the Self (COTS) surveillance cameras and far smaller in size. A customized application is also developed, to monitor and provide Social Network Forensics (SNF) as a forensic tool for post incident analysis. The paper presents the complete System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) of solution.