Pak. J. Biotechnol. Vol.

14 (3) 337-343 (2017) ISSN Print: 1812-1837

www.pjbt.org ISSN Online: 2312-7791

IoT BASED PATIENT MONITORING SYSTEM USING RASPBERRY PI 3 and LabVIEW

K. Mohanraj1, N. Balaji2, R. Chithrakkannan3
1
Sri Sairam Engineering College, Chennai, India 2 Sri Sairam Engineering College, Chennai, India
3
Sri Sairam Engineering College, Chennai, India. Email: mohanraj.ice@sairam.edu.in, balaji.ice@sairam.edu.in,
Chithrakkannan.ice@sairam.edu.in
Article received 30.6.2017, Revised 15.9.2017, Accepted 20.9.2017
ABSTRACT:
Continuous monitoring of critical patients and their biological parameters are transmitted to doctor’s console, and
doctor’s domain address in person using Internet of Things technology (IoT). The design involves measurement of
all critical parameters of patients using sensors. Vital parameters measured are temperature, respiration, and pulse
rate, humidity and oxygen saturation level using dht11 sensor, MQ sensor, pulse sensor and pulse oximeter sensor.
The input sensors are interfaced with an Arduino board and then the signals are transferred to the Raspberry Pi
controller and the vital parameters are transmitted to the centralized monitor, where the front end is designed using
Lab VIEW software. Using IoT, physicians are notified about the sudden change in patient’s condition. The
graphical representation of the patient’s data is displayed in the doctor’s console using Lab VIEW, and the critical
readings of the patient are sent to the doctor’s domain address through IoT. Thus, critical patients can be monitored
by the doctors from wherever they are, enabling more care and attention towards the patient’s health by the doctor.
Key words: PMS (Patient Monitoring System), ICU (Intensive Care unit), ECG (electrocardiograph)
INTRODUCTION
the monitoring of patient’s vital parameters. Yoon
To overcome the existing problem which requires
et al., [2013] reviewed the recent trends and chall-
doctor’s attention over the patient continuously,
enges in patient monitoring system. It is a single
this can be overcome by interfacing all the biolo-
integrated system that measures various parame-
gical parameters of the patient through LabVIEW.
ters such as blood pressure, temperature, heart
The Authors [Balamurugan et al., 2013] uses the
rate, respiratory rate, and ECG. In exceptional
remote monitoring using modernized communica-
cases, more advanced and sophisticated body
tion. The measured signals are interfaced with
measurements such as brain activity muscle activ-
Arduino boards, which are being placed near each
ity, etc. are also monitored. The basic function of
and every patient. These signals from the Arduino
the PMS is to monitor and activate various alarms
boards are all transferred to a single Raspberry Pi
whenever a parameter goes critical. PMS is avail-
controller, which acts as a server. From the contr-
able as both stand alone and centralized configu-
oller, the data are transmitted to the LabVIEW
rations. PMS is mainly classified into Analog and
software for the simulation process as a front-end
Digital types and as Monitors/Defibrillators. In
output. Abasi et al., [2017] have implemented the
analog type oscilloscopes, only dedicated channel
web publishing tool in lab VIEW. The data are
is used for electrocardiographic monitoring (EC-
also sent to the doctors with the help of IoT to
G). So, medical monitors tended to be highly
their personal domains. The biological-parameters
focused. One monitor would track a patient’s blood
such as respiration, pulse, temperature, humidity
pressure, while another would measure pulse oxi-
and pulse oximetry are being monitored. Hence by
metry, and ECG. And Later analog models were
the help of our project critical patients can be
introduced with dual channels displayed in the
monitored continuously and can be given adequ-
same screen usually to monitor blood pressure and
ate treatment. The current existing system moni-
respiration movements. So, these machines were
tors only the ECG signals and remaining parame-
played a vital role in saving human lives but they
ters are not available. The major problem faced by
had several restrictions including to electrical inter-
the patients in the Intensive Care Unit is that they
ference, Sensitivity, base level fluctuations, and
can’t be monitored continuously using IoT. Hence
absence of digital readouts and apprehensions.
this project aims at the continuous monitoring of
Due to the development of discrete time signal pro-
very critical patients and their biological parame-
cessing (DTSP) technology the Biomedical disp-
ters are transmitted to the doctor’s console. Any
lays are evolved enormously, and all equipped
major changes in the patients’ health can be intim-
with latest DTSP technology models which leads
ated to the doctor’s concerned by the application.
to the advantages of reduction in size and porta-
PATIENT MONITORING SYSTEM: The pati-
bility. Baig et al., [2013] have a depth analysis to
ent monitoring system (PMS) is most fairly used
achieve the smart health monitoring system.
in Intensive Care Units and Critical Care Units for
Nowadays the trend is developed towards multi-
 338 Mohanraj K. et al., Pak. J. Biotechnol.

parameter displays that can track and display continuously monitor the patient’s vital parame-
many different parameters at once. The measured ters using IoT, the various objectives of the sys-
parameters consist of pulse oximetry (amount of tem are to simulate bio-signals like Respiratory
saturated oxygen percentage in blood referred to signals, Pulse signal, Temperature signal and Oxy-
as SpO2 measured by an infrared cuff), ECG gen Saturation, the measured signals are inter-
(electrocardiograph of the PQRS waves of the faced with Lab view and are transmitted to the
heart with external pacemaker or without an exter- centralized monitor through IoT, thus transmiss-
nal heart pacemaker), blood pressure (either non- ion of vital signal to Doctor console using IoT and
invasively with an inflatable blood pressure cluff creating an alert in case of emergency.
or invasively with an inserted blood pressure
transducer), and temperature measurement thro-
ugh a thermoelectric transducer. In critical situa-
tion, other important parameters can be measured
and monitored such as output of cardiac (through
an Swan-Ganz catheter), respiration (through air-
way respiratory rate or through a thoracic trans-
ducer belt, an ECG channel), capnography (CO2
parameter referred to an End-Tidal Carbon Diox-
ide concentration), etc. Also, the tracking of biolo-
gical parameters along time (X axis) digital medi- Fig 1: Block diagram of Planned System
cal have automated digital readouts of the average The Bio-signals from the sensors such as Pulse,
and peak parameters displayed on the monitor and Temperature, Respiratory and Pulse Oximeter are
high/low alarm levels can be set and also alert the interfaced with Arduino. The Arduino board is
staff when some biological parameters exceeds connected with Raspberry Pi controller. It acts as
the lower limits using emergency signals. Several a server for IOT in transmission of Bio-signals.
models with latest technology have the multipara- The Bio-signals of the patients are transmitted to
meter monitors with network connectivity i.e., it the doctor in case of alert using IOT technology.
can send their biological output to a central inten- The Lab VIEW is interfaced with Raspberry Pi
sive care unit monitoring station where a single Controller using RS-23 communication. The Lab
staff can able to respond the several patient moni- VIEW software is used as the front-end panel, the
tors simultaneously. Telemetry Ambulatory can doctor console for the display of detected Bio-
also be attained by battery-operated models with a signals. The Hardware design includes various
portable type which are carried by the patient and hardware such as the Temperature sensor (DHT1-
which transmit their parameters through a wireless 1), Respiratory sensor (MQ sensor), Pulse sensor,
data communication. Pulse Oximeter, Arduino, Raspberry Pi 3, RS232,
Defibrillator/Monitor: Some EMS services digi- Ethernet shield. Initially all the four sensors are
tal biological patient monitors especially those connected to a bread board, from which they are
used an incorporate defibrillator into the patient connected to the ground and the supply. From the
monitor itself. These defibrillators typically have bread board, all the sensors are connected to the
the competences of an ICU monitor, but have Arduino board, which acts as a node between the
manual defibrillation capability. This is particul- sensors and the controller Raspberry Pi, the
arly precise for EMS services who needs a comp- controller acts as a mini computer. It also acts as
act and very easy to use defibrillator and monitor the server from which the Ethernet shield is conn-
also have the capability of pacing like adhesive ected and the output from the sensor is processed
pads which often can be used for defibrillation, and the output is given. From the Arduino board,
pacing and monitoring that are useful to the pati- the RS232 communication port is connected
ent in a frontal subsequent configurations. The de- which acts as the bridge for the communication of
fibrillator monitors often have a dedicated moni- sensors to the graphical display of the Lab VIEW
toring parameter such as, invasive BP, SET pulse results. From the Raspberry Pi controller, the
oximetry, and waveform capnography. keyboard, mouse and the monitor are connected.
PLANNED SYSTEM: The main aim of the plan- This controller has the python operating system
ned system is to design a patient monitoring sys- which has the internet website domain where the
tem, which overcomes the existing problem which data of the patient are transferred and saved.
requires doctor’s attention over the patient conti- ZigBee: It is an open global standard wireless
nuously by interfacing all the biological parame- technology developed to address the unique needs
ters through Lab VIEW. The doctors now can
Vol. 14 (3) 20167 IoT based patient monitoring …… 339

of low-power, low-cost wireless Mobile to Mobile The output of the sensor is an analog resistance.
networks. The Authors [Myung et al., 2011] uses
the Bluetooth based blood pressure monitors. Phy-
sical radio specification Standards operates on IE-
EE 802.15.4 and operates in unlicensed bands inc-
luding 900MHz, 2.4GHz, 868MHz and 900 MHz.

Fig 4: Respiratory Sensor

Pulse Sensor: The sensor operation is very mod-
est. The power supply of the board is from 3V to
5V, the necessity of Enable pin to trigger the IR
sensor. And place the tip of your forefinger sligh-
Fig 2: Flow chart of Proposed System tly over the sensor face. Your finger should not
Hardware Description: press too hard on the sensor. After a couple of
Temperature Sensor: For temperature measure- seconds, the circuit stabilizes and the LED flashing
ment, the sensors used are NTC temperature sen- with your heart beat synchronously.
sor or a thermostat. It is actually, a variable resis- Features:
tance type, when it is subjected to temperature Working voltage is 5V.
that changes its resistance with the change in tem- Working current is 4mA
perature. These are made up of semi conductive
materials such as polymers or ceramics to provide
a larger variation in the resistance with just a very
small change in temperature. The term NTC (Neg-
ative Temperature Coefficient), which means that
the temperature increases and resistance is decre-
ases.
Features:
• Temperature range: 0-50°C
• Operating voltage: 3-5V Fig 5: Pulse sensor
• Humidity range: 20-80%
Pulse Oximeter: It is a non-invasive method for
patient oxygen saturation and the reading of
peripheral oxygen saturation is not always equal
to the reading of arterial oxygen saturation from
blood arterial gas analysis, but the two are conn-
ected well for the non-invasive, convenient, safe,
inexpensive pulse oximetry method is valued for
measuring oxygen saturation in medical use. In its
Fig 3: Temperature Sensor
most common transmissive application mode, a
Respiratory Sensor: The gas sensors are MQ ser- sensor is placed on a patient's body on a very thin
ies which uses an electro-chemical sensor with a surface, usually an earlobe, or fingertip or a foot
small heater inside. They are highly sensitive for in-case of an infant. The two wavelengths of light
gasses and also used in room temperature. It can passed by the sensor through the body part and
be calibrated with a known concentration of the the light is detected by the photo detector. The
measured gas. The generated analog output of detector measures the wavelength by change in
the sensor can be readout by an Arduino analog absorbance of the wavelengths and allow it to
input. determine the absorbance due to the pulsating
Features: Very high sensitivity and quick response arterial blood alone, without skin, venous blood,
time. fat, muscle, and bone.
 340 Mohanraj K. et al., Pak. J. Biotechnol.

Fig 6: Pulse Oximeter

Pl2303 (Communication Port): The Converter Fig 8: Arduino Circuit Board
used is USB to UART is a very suitable tool for The above Arduino board includes a microcontro-
Embedded applications. It is easy to interface ller, which is programmed using C/C++ program-
which uses UART modules like GPS, GSM, Wi- ing with an integrated development environment.
Fi Bluetooth. It can easily send data directly to which use basic programming variables, structures
Personal Computer for analyzing the biological and functions. Arduino is also based on Google
data Here in this project PL2303 is used for USB Android Open Accessory Development Kit. The
to UART converter which is manufactured by Figure No:9 shows the Arduino screen for progra-
Prolific Technology. It can easily connect to ming which contains setup and loop function. A
Personal Computer through USB port. It uses a sketch program written with the Arduino soft-
USB to TTL serial tool, using the PL2303 chip. ware. Sketches are nothing but test files which is
saved on the development computer with file ext-
ension. ino and the Arduino pre-1.0 Software
saves the sketch with the file extension. pde. The
Arduino board supports both the languages C and
C++ using special code structuring. The Arduino
software has a library functions for wiring the
hardware for input and output connections. The
written code requires only two basic functions, for
starting the sketch that is setup and loop. With the
Fig 7: Pl2303 USB to UART help of boot loader, the hexadecimal encoding is
ARDUINO UNO: An Arduino Program can be loaded into the Arduino board firmware.
written in any programming language for the tar-
get processor. It has an editor with features of
text, pasting and cutting, replacing and searching
text, syntax highlighting, automatic indenting,
brace matching, and provides a modest method to
compile and upload the target programs to the
Arduino board. It also has features of text con-
sole and message area and a toolbar for common
functions. It refers to open-source electronics plat-
form. It is an innovative board designed particul-
arly for artists, hobbyists and those who are inte-
rested in creating a new product for new applica-
tions which will related to society to create a new Fig 9: Arduino Screen
interactive object.
The Arduino C/C++ sketch, as seen by the IDE
programmer, consists of only two functions:
Setup: This setup function is called only once
when a sketch starts after the board reset or powe-
red on. It is mainly used to initialize the input and
output pin modes and the library function for the
program.
Vol. 14 (3) 20167 IoT based patient monitoring …… 341

Loop: After setup has been initialized, it will exe- sensor which will detect the temperature and
cute the function loop in the main program repea- transmit the digital signal.
tedly. The board is controlled until the board is
powered off or reset. Now a day the LED light
and a load resistor between ground and pin 13 to
perform board test and program functions. The
Integrated Development Environment contains a
text editor for message area, writing code, a text
console, a toolbar with buttons for common func-
tions. It connects the Genuino and Arduino hard- Fig 11: Functional Block of the Raspberry Pi
ware to communicate upload programs to the Power source connector: It is the small switch
board. placed on shield. It will connect the external
Raspberry Pi Controller: The Raspberry pi is a power source to the board.
credit card size and a single computer board that Display: There are two types of connections such
can be used as a computer to perform the tasks as Composite and HDMI. Either LCD or LED TV
like spreadsheets, Word processing and games. are connected with the low-cost HDMI cable for
display purpose.
Features:
• CPU: 64-bit Quad-core ARM Cortex A53
clocked with 1.2 GHz.
• GPU: Video Core IV multimedia
400MHz.
• Memory: SDRAM 1GB LPDDR2-900
• USB ports: 4.
• Video outputs: Composite video
• Network: Ethernet and 802.11n Wireless
Fig 10: Blocks of Raspberry Pi LAN. 10/100Mbps.
Memory: The model A board is designed with Software Description: Lab VIEW is a virtual ins-
SDRAM of 256MB and model B with designed trumentation tool which incorporates graphical
capacity of 51MB. It is a small credit card size PC programming for research process laboratory and
compare with other Personal Computers. In rasp- also in industries for simulation and controlling
berry pi board, the RAM memory is available the process. (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engi-
from 256MB to 512MB. neering workbench). It is the most powerful tool
CPU: The brain of the raspberry pi board is the and instrumentation software and multipurpose
Central processing unit where the instruction and analysis for automation and measurement. Its gra-
commands to be carried out through the logical phical programming user interface called GUI
and arithmetic operations. programming is very easy to build a block of the
GPU: It is the specialized chip in the raspberry pi process instead of coding which makes errors
board to speed up the operation of image calcula- while compiling. This tool eliminates the errors in
tions and it supports OpenGL. an easy manner. It is more flexible than standard
Ethernet Port: It acts as a main gateway for rasp- laboratory instruments because it is software
berry pi for communicating with the interface based. Using this LabVIEW tool, the programmer
devices. simulates the instrument need for the particular
GPIO Pins: This pin is used to accept the input applications and can change easily with the help
and output commands based on the program of GUI tool, it can also be called virtual instru-
functions. It also accepts digital GPIO pins. These ments because any type of instrument can be used
pins are used to connect other electronic compo- with the help of GUI tool. We can easily trouble-
nents. For example, the pin can connect to the shoot the program and modify the program in a
very easy manner.
342 Mohanraj K. et al., Pak. J. Biotechnol.

Fig 12: LabVIEW Program 1

Fig 13: LabVIEW Program 2

Fig 14: LabVIEW Program 3

Fig 15: Sensor signal from Patient

Vol. 14 (3) 20167 IoT based patient monitoring …… 343

Fig 16: Sensor output in numerical Value

Result and Conclusion: The graphical represent- Yoon, Y., Three-Tiered Data Mining for Big Data
tation of the bio-signals from the sensors is displa- Patterns of Wireless Sensor Networks in Medi-
yed in the LabVIEW front end panel which is pla- cal and Healthcare Domains. Proceedings of the
ced in the doctor’s console. The result from this 8th International Conference on Internet and
project was obtained temperature of the patient, Web Applications and Services, Rome, Italy Pp.
heart rate, CO2, Oxygen saturation Whenever 18-24, June 23–28 (2013)
there is an increase of patient body temperature Abasi Julius, Zhang Jian-Min, IoT Based Patient
and heartbeat rate the authorized care givers get Health Monitoring System Using in Interna-
message so that they can take some immediate tional Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
measures. The results obtained can be visualized 6(3): (2017)
on GUI created on LabVIEW and far distance Baig, M., H. Gholamhosseini, Smart health moni-
physicians can see also with help of internet but toring systems: An overview of design and mo-
they should have link to access it. The LabVIEW deling. J. Med. Syst. 37(9898): 1–14 (2013).
GUI was designed on LabVIEW 2014. Myung-kyung Suh, Chien-An Chen, Jonathan
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