Evaluation of Bluetooth Low Energy Capabilities for Continuous Data Transmission from a Wearable Electrocardiogram

Bluetooth Low Energy (BT-LE) is the technology, in conjunction with Near Field Communication (NFC) and 6LoWPAN, which makes feasible the wireless transmission of information from small objects. These small objects are being each time more smart, starting to be internet-enabled devices, reaching so the denominated Internet of Things (IoT). Our research work is focused on analyze the capabilities of these technologies for the continuous data transmission and integration of clinical sensors. Specifically, it has been considered a clinical sensor with high communications requirements, an electrocardiogram (ECG). For this ECG, it is presented an evaluation of the performance with the native communication model from the sensor, i.e. RAW data model, where all the data provided from the ECG is sent via BT-LE, this initial evaluation concluded that it is necessary to perform data compression/aggregation when the amount of data to send is too large. Therefore, this work also presents the use of a pre-processing techniques that greatly reduces the transmission overload (performs signal compression) in order to allow the continuous transmission of the ECG signal through BT-LE making so feasible the integration of continuous clinical devices via BT-LE. Finally, it is also analyzed the limits from BT-LE in order to avoid delay in the communications because an excessive number of packets.