Wireless Wearable Remote Physiological Signals Monitoring System M. G. Srinivasa # and P. S. Pandian *+ # Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering Maharaja Institute of Technology (MIT), Mysore – 571 438, India srinivasamg_ece@mitmysore.in * O/o Director General (Electronics & Communication Systems) Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) DARE, Campus, C V Raman Nagar, Bangalore – 560 093, India pspandian@yahoo.com Abstract— Wearable Physiological Monitoring Systems (WPMS) integrates a number of sensors into fabric of the wearer for remotely monitoring the health status. The paper discusses a Wireless wearable remote physiological signal monitoring system to acquire and monitor physiological parameters like Electrocardiogram (ECG) acquired from a dry textile electrode, Photoplethysomogram (PPG), body temperature, Pulse Transmit Time (PTT) and Heart Rate. The acquired physiological signals are transmitted wireless using ZigBee or a Bluetooth to a remote monitoring station. In the remote monitoring station the data is processed and physiological parameters are extracted and displayed continuously. From the acquired data the overall health status of wearer is monitored. The paper discusses the first prototype of the wearable physiological monitoring system developed and the initial testing results. Keywords— WPMS, ECG, PPG, Heart Rate, Textile Electrodes, Wireless and Remote Monitoring Station. I. INTRODUCTION In the recent years there has been an increasing demand for consumer health monitoring to provide real-time feed back to the users for monitoring vital parameters to provide feedback to the users. Also, there is a need to monitor health status of elderly persons at home, patients discharged from hospitals and home bound patients like those suffering from Parkinson disease. There are also certain professions, where the personnel risk their lives to complete the assigned task. These may include a soldier fighting the enemy, fire fighters involved in fighting fire, law enforcement personnel, miners, deep sea divers and astronauts in space. Considering the mobility and vulnerability, it is very important to monitor the health status of the personnel to ensure the safety and effective completion of the assigned job. Hence, there has been a significant shift in the development of the clothing by way of introduction of the sensors into the clothing worn by the personnel to monitor their health status while they perform their duty. To monitor the health status of the individuals the Wearable Physiological Monitoring Systems (WPMS) were developed. The wearable physiological monitoring system is a shirt, which uses sensors integrated into the fabric or shirt to collect and continuously monitor the vital physiological parameters. The monitored physiological parameters are transmitted wireless to a remote monitoring station. The received data is processed and correlated to predict the overall picture of the wearer’s health. The wearable physiological monitoring systems consists of three systems namely (a) sensors (b) wearable data acquisition and processing hardware (c) remote monitoring station. The sensors are integrated into the fabric worn in the form of a shirt or as a chest worn belt. The sensors are customized and comfortable for long duration monitoring. The wearable data acquisition hardware collects the signals from the sensors, process and transmits the data to the remote monitoring station. The remote monitoring station receives, processes and displays the data in form suitable for diagnosis. Fig. 1 illustrates the general overall architecture of a wearable physiological monitoring system consisting of sensors integrated into the shirt, wearable data acquisition and processing hardware and remote monitoring and analysis station. Earlier doctors commonly used the Holter monitors for continuously recording the 12-Lead ECG of cardiac patients and analysis were done off-line at a later time. The Holter systems suffered various drawbacks, as they caused discomfort to the wearer and there are too many hampering wires between the electrodes and the monitoring system. These wires also limited the patient’s activity and caused discomfort to the person and hence affected the reliability of the monitored physiological parameters. The conventional sensors and medical instruments cannot be used for wearable physiological monitoring applications due to the following reasons [1-2].  The conventional sensors are difficult to wear for longer durations, as they cause discomfort to the wearer; also the gels used in the electrodes for monitoring the bio- potential signals caused skin irritations and allergies when used for longer durations. + Corresponding Author