Prof. Frank Merat
Department of EECS, Case School of Engineering
Real-time monitoring of vital signs can involve much equipment and many wires,
but what if it could be made wireless? And if it can be made wireless, can
the body itself contribute positively to the wireless communication? Conventional
wireless transceivers waste power by radiating in many directions. The human
body provides a channel for coupling between sensors which could confine the
radiation to the body and improve both the power efficiency and the wearer
flexibility. This work is analyzing how the body itself can be used to minimize
the amount of path loss for such applications as a wireless wearable health
monitoring system. We have done extensive experimentation on patch antennas
and their interaction with the human body. At 300 MHz, patch antennas that
are nowhere near resonance (because they are much too small) are found to
couple the wireless signal through the body with no more than -38 dB of attenuation
for up to 2.5 meters of separation. A first generation wireless wearable health
monitoring system has been designed and implemented, and skin temperature
data was successfully monitored.
(Joint work with W. Ko, D. Young and M. Dummeruth).