Proceedings of2013 IEEE Conference on Information and Communication Technologies (lCT 2013)

Pervasive Health Care System for Monitoring

Oxygen Saturation using Pulse Oximeter Sensor
A.Keerthika,R.Ganesan
Department of TIF AC-CORE in Pervasive Computing Technology
Velarnmal Engineering College
Chennai, India
asokankeerthika@gmail.com, tifacore.ganesan@velanlmal.edu.in
Abstract-s- Increase in the world's population, along with an
increase in the spread of chronic illnesses and obesity which
requires adaption and modification of current healthcare models.
Blood oxygen saturation is one of the main parameter for health
monitoring of person at the intensive care unit and person with
Chronic Diseases. Hence Tele health applications are developed
based on sensor technologies for continuous monitoring. Recent
technological development, particularly involving micro electro
mechanical systems, has resulted in miniaturized wearable
devices that can be used for a range of applications. The
proposed method demonstrates a design of a wearable wireless
blood saturation monitoring system. The system should capable
for measuring and transmitting patient's arterial bloed-oxygen
saturation (Sp02) level and heart rate (HR). \Ve use
low
power
commercially
available
sensing
devices,
micro controllers and modem that perform the measurements
(Sp02 and HR) and transmit them to the patient monitoring
device. The monitoring device which is available in form of a
PDA runs a personal Sp02 monitor application, receives the
Sp02 level and Heart Rate activates the alarms when the
monitored parameters exceed the Threshold limits that
communicates periodically to the Telemonitoring server b)' using
GSl\'1 Modem. This project is a real time application with low
cost and flexible to the user convince.

applications is to create an environment where the

connectivity of devices is embedded in such a way that the
connectivity is continuous and always available.

B.

Pervasive Health Care

Pervasive healthcare is the technology which provides

healthcare to anyone, at anytime, and anywhere without any
restraints of time and location with increasing both the
coverage and the quality of healthcare [10]. Some applications
of this technology include pervasive health monitoring,
emergency management system, pervasive healthcare database
access.
C.

Oxygen Saturation

Human beings need oxygen for all metabolic activines

particularly brain and heart is sensitive to a lack of oxygen.
Shortage of oxygen in body leads to hypoxia.

Keywords-GSll1,Healthcare,Pulseox;metersensor,Pervas;ve
Computing.Android OS.

I.

A.

INTRODUCTION

Pervasive computing

The idea of the technology that is moving beyond the

personal
computer
to
everyday
devices
with embedded technology and connectivity as computing
devices become smaller and powerful. The ubiquitous
computing is the result of computer technology advancing at
high exponential speeds.The trend towards all man-made and
some natural products having hardware and software devices.
Pervasive computing works beyond the realm of personal
computers [13].
It is the idea where any device, from clothing to tools to
appliances to cars can be embedded with chips to connect the
device to an overall network of other devices. The goal of
pervasive computing is to combine current network
technologies with wireless computing, recognition, network
capability
and artificial
intelligence
shows
ambient

978-1-4673-5758-6/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

Fig.lPulrnonary alveoli. [3]

Oxygen transmission is performed through the circulatory

system. The blood which is deoxygenated enters the heart
where it is pumped to the lungs to be oxygenated. In the
process of oxygenation, blood passes through the pulmonary
alveoli where the exchange of gas occurs Fig.I. Carbon
dioxide (C02) is released and the oxygenation of blood takes
place, afterwards where the blood is pumped back to the aorta.
Red blood cells contain a protein which is called hemoglobin.
When reaction of blood occurs with this protein, it gets
attached to it and it then generates Oxyhemoglobin (Hb02).
The Red blood cells with oxygenated hemoglobin will get
circulated in the blood throughout the whole body. When the
cell gets contact with a blood, the red blood cells hemoglobin

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Proceedings of2013 IEEE Conference on Information and Communication Technologies (lCT 2013)

releases oxygen and becomes Deoxyhemoglobin (Hb)

(deoxygenated hemoglobin).
At the point, blood in the absence of oxygen returns to the
right atrium of heart to repeat the process again. The diagram
demonstrates the whole process. In Table 1 the normal oxygen
rate and the up normal level are explained.
TABLE 1
VALUES OF OXYGEN RATE

Condition

Vulues
97-100% sat
90-95%
<90%

Good Gas Exchange

Mild hypoxia
Severe hypoxia

D. Pulse Oximeter Sensor

Pulse Oximetry sensor is the device shown in Fig. 2. which
uses the non-invasive technique for measuring the oxygen
saturation (Sp02) [9]. Oxygen saturation is process of
measuring the amount of oxygen dissolved in blood, based on
Hemoglobin and Deoxyhemoglobin saturation in blood. The
Oximeter probe has two components, the light emitting diodes
(LEDs) and a light detector (called a photo-detector). A beam
of light is passed through the tissues from one side of the
probe to the other. The blood and tissues absorb light emitted
from probe; it varies according to the oxygen saturation of
hemoglobin. Then photo detector detects the light transmitted
through blood pulses and the microcontroller process for the
oxygen saturation value (Sp02).

can continuously measure physiological signals and either

process the data locally at a base station or stream the data to a
remote location in real-time. Communications are performed
using recent web browser with the commonly-available Adobe
Flash plug-in installed. Then remote monitoring, without
geographic location, is possible form any PC or appropriate
smart phone [4].
This paper reviewed the state-of-the-art in research and
development of wearable sensor-based systems for health
monitoring. As it is shown by the current technology status,
WHMS have the potential to revolutionize healthcare by
providing low-cost solutions for ubiquitous, all-day,
unobtrusive personal health monitoring and are expected to
enable early detection and better. It explains about the
treatment of various medical conditions as well as disease
prevention and better understanding and self-management of
chronic diseases [5].
This paper describes wireless wearable and ambient sensors
that cooperate to monitor a person's vital signs such as heart
rate and blood pressure during daily activities. The wearable
sensor is placed on different parts of the body. Experimental
results indicate that the system simultaneously provides
information about the user's location and their vital signs, and
wearable sensors successfully give vital signs with alms
resolution [6].
The Chronious system addresses a smart wearable platform,
depending on multiple sensor data processing, to monitor the
people affected by chronic diseases in long-stay setting. An
additional component aiming at the personalization of the
Intelligent System's Decision is the Profiler which defines
several patients' profiles and facilitates clustering techniques
in order to associate each patient's description with one of the
predefined profiles [7].
III.

ARCHITECTURE DESIGN

The pulse oximeter sensor is placed in Human body which

sense the oxygen saturation value[8] of the person and sensed
Fig.2. Pulse Oximeter Sensor

II.

RELATED WORK

A Prototype of Wireless Low Power Pulse Oximetry is

Designed, Implemented and Tested. The hardware was
implemented by using commercially available devices. The
proposed system provides the possibility to access the Sp02
and HR from different locations via Internet. Remote
monitoring of patients in real time, preventive or after major
medical events is a procedure increasingly used in medical
practice. It requires medical devices with continuous
improving performances in order to obtain more accurate
acquisition and transmission of vital parameters [1].
The CARA e-Healthcare system provides a technical
solution for soliciting expert feedback on data being streamed
from at risk patients when that expert is not around. System

978-1-4673-5758-6/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

Fig.3. Block diagram

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Proceedings of2013 IEEE Conference on Information and Communication Technologies (lCT 2013)

value will given to the signal conditioning circuit which is

connected to the PIC (Pheripheral Interface Controller)
microcontroller. These data parameters are sampled at
PIC 18F4520 microcontroller and the data are transmitted
using the GSM(Global Sim Module) MODEM through
antenna [2]. The sensing, transmisson and reception blocks of
the module is shown in Fig.3.
The data is received at the GSM MODEM receiver and is
sent to the Server PC. In PC, processing of sensed data is done
and if Oxygen Rate is abnormal, person is initiated with SMS
Alert.

B.

If Oxygen Rate is less than 80, Alert is given to the patient

for taking precaution. If it is less than 50, Alert is given to
doctor for an immediate treatment to prevent person from
severe diseases.
IV.

A.

Fractional pulse oximetry algorithm

Fractional pulse Oximetry (FrOx) algorithm shown in

Fig.4. is designed to solve hemoglobin fractions (Hbx) .The
equations are
linearized by using the path-length
transformation from the vivo measured signals with respect to
the corresponding non-scatter signals in the Beer-Lambert
model using parameters from the preprocessing phase. Here
effective extinction coefficients are obtained by extinction
compensation. Then linear set of equations is solved to derive
Analyte concentrations.

Parameters derived
from
plethysmography
signal Rin-vivo,
Rresp, PI, and FLT

MODULES

Parameters
from
hardware

Extinction
coefficients f

LED,DET,

GAIN

Pulse oximetry sensor

Working of Pulse Oximetry depends only on the spectral

analysis for measuring the oxygen saturation in the blood; i.e.
the detection and analysis of components in solution will
depend on their unique light absorption characteristics. The
pulse Oximeter works on two technologies spectro photometry
(which measures hemoglobin oxygen saturation) and optical
plethysmography (which measures pulsatile changes in arterial
blood volume at the sensor site).
BEER-Lambert law is used for detecting the oxygen
saturation of hemoglobin using spectro photometry technique,
which compares the concentration of a solute with the
intensity of light transmitted through a solution. To estimate
the concentration of a light absorbing substance we must know
the intensity and wavelength of incident light, the length of the
transmission path, and absorbance of the substance at a
specific wavelength (the extinction coefficient). This is based
upon the formula (1 & 2).
I Trans = I Inc-A
A = Dice

Hb0 2

Total Haemoglobin

978-1-4673-5758-6/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

C.

(3)

Pulse oximetry sensor specification

Specification of pulse Oximetry sensor (sp 1006) is

provided in Table 2 as below,
TABLE 2
SPECIFICATION OF SENSOR

(1)
(2)

Itrans = intensity of transmitted light

lin = intensity of incident light
A = absorption
Di = distance light is transmitted through the liquid (path
length)
C = concentration of solute (hemoglobin)
E = extinction coefficient of the solute (a constant for a given
solute at a specified wavelength)
Oxygen saturation, Sp02, is as the
ratio
of
Oxyhemoglobin (Hb02) to the total concentration of
hemoglobin present in the blood as shown in the equation (3).
Sa02

Fig.4. Steps included in fractional pulse oximetry algorithm

Input Voltage
Output Voltage
Output Current
Output Power
Wavelength
Dimensions
\Veight

D.

100 to 240 VAC

5 VDC
250MA
1.25\V
660nm,880nm
61 (L),56(\V),24(H)mm
About 50g

PIC microcontroller

The PIC micro controllers are low cost, flexible and

suitable for a wide variety of applications. PICs are mainly
used in industrial field and hobbyists because of their low cost,
wide availability, large collection of application notes,
availability of low cost or free developer tools, and because of
its serial programming.

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Proceedings of2013 IEEE Conference on Information and Communication Technologies (lCT 2013)

Data collected from pulse oximeter sensors is sent through

WSN to the base station. Simulated signal is given to the PIC
microcontroller and after signal conditioning it is transmitted
using the GSM modern. Other side, the transmitted signal is
received by the server pc through GSM modem receiver. If
measured parameter value is above threshold value
automatically send the alert SMS is sent to the doctor or
patients according to the threshold value.

E.

GSMmodem

GSM modem a special type of modem [11] which has a

SIM card, and works over a subscription to a mobile operator,
as same as mobile phone. For the mobile operator, GSM
modem simply looks like a mobile phone. When it is
connected to a computer, it allows the computer to
communicate to the mobile network. Mainly GSM modems
are used for sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages.
This can be performed by using Extended AT commands. By
using these AT Command we perform various applications
like sending sms, checks the signal strength. Some important
AT Commands [12] are,

AT (Attention command)

AT+CREG? (To check signal)

AT+CMGS='''' (To send sms)

AT+CMGR= (To read sms)

AT+CMGD= (To delete sms)

ATD984I4XXXXX; (To make call)

F.

IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULTS

Fig.5. Hardware Design

Android os

Android is an Open Handset Alliance. It's initially

developed by the Android Inc. It is a mobile operating system
developed by Google and it is based on the Linux kernel. This
operating system software stack contains Java applications
based on object oriented application framework on top of Java
core libraries that runs on Dalvik virtual machine featuring JIT
(Just in Time) compilation

H.

V.

After the procurement of pulse Oximeter sensor sp 1006, it's

an ear lobe sensor which measures the oxygen rate of the
person and sends it to the PIC microcontroller (18F4520) after
signal conditioning. A circuit is designed for transferring the
data from PIC to server through GSM Modem in Proteus
Workspace using embedded c coding in Mplab IDE. Database
is created using MYSQL and after processing in database
SMS alert is sent according to given condition. Mobile
Application is developed using Android operating system
v2.3.
The sample screenshots of the Hardware Design using PIC
Microcontroller and the pulse Oximeter sensor is shown in
Fig.5. In Fig.6. the connection is established between the
server system and the mobile application. The data is
transmitted from the database of server system to the mobile
application using GSM Modem. Then the SMS alert will be
given to Doctor or Patients Relation.

Server system

MySQL is a multithreaded, multi-user SQL database

management system has, more than 10 million installations
there are APIs available that allow applications written in
numerous programming languages to access MySQL
databases. An ODBC interface called MyODBC allows
additional programming languages that support the ODBC
interface to communicate with a MySQL database, like ASP
or ColdFusion. MySQL is mostly implemented in ANSI C.
G.

MPLAB IDE also acts as a single, specialized graphical

user interface for microchip environment along with software
and hardware development tools. It has a project which
contain group of files along with compiler tools, such as
MPLAB C18, CCS Compiler in the MPLAB IDE.

Server system

MPLAB Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is an

integrated tool for the developing the embedded application
using Microchip's PIC and PIC microcontroller. It is a 32-bit
application running on MS windows and it is easy to use and
also it is free software components for embedded application
development.

978-1-4673-5758-6/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

Fig.6. SMS Alert in Android Phone

VI.

CONCLUSION

We designed a sensor circuit for detecting Saturated

Oxygen value of a person by using Pulse Oximeter sensor and
interfaced with Microcontroller (PIC 18f4520) and the
simulated signal is processed. The value obtained is a digital
value which is displayed in the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
and simulated result is obtained using Mplab and proteus

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Proceedings of2013 IEEE Conference on Information and Communication Technologies (lCT 2013)

software. The Oxygen Saturated value is transmitted to the

SERVER PC using GSM module. After processing SMS alert
is given to the patient

or

doctor according to Threshold value

in Emergency situation. If oxygen Rate is less than 80, Alert

is given to the patient for taking precaution. If it is less than
50, Alert is given to doctor for an immediate treatment to
prevent person from severe diseases. In Future, Design of
Wireless Pulse Oximeter sensor gives more flexible to the
users.
Acknowledgement
I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to Prof. Mrs. B.
Venkatalakshmi, Professor and Head of Department of
TIF AC-CO RE for their support for my project without them
this would not have happened successfully. I wish to express
my heartfelt thanks to Mr. Prof .Dr .A Natarajan, M.S, FICS,
FRSH for helping me to know about the uses and needs of
pulse oximeter sensor.
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