Context-aware sensing of physiological signals

Abstract

Recent advancement in microsensor technology permits miniaturization of conventional physiological sensors. Combined with low-power, energy-aware embedded systems and low power wireless interfaces, these sensors now enable patient monitoring in home and workplace environments in addition to the clinic. Low energy operation is critical for meeting typical long operating lifetime requirements. Some of these physiological sensors, such as electrocardiographs (ECG), introduce large energy demand because of the need for high sampling rate and resolution, and also introduce limitations due to reduced user wearability. In this paper, we show how context-aware sensing can provide the required monitoring capability while eliminating the need for energy-intensive continuous ECG signal acquisition. We have implemented a wearable system based on standard widely-used handheld computing hardware components. This system relies on a new software architecture and an embedded inference engine developed for these standard platforms. The performance of the system is evaluated using experimental data sets acquired for subjects wearing this system during an exercise sequence. This same approach can be used in context-aware monitoring of diverse physiological signals in a patient's daily life.