Sophisticated electronics are within reach of average users. Cooperation between wireless sensor networks and existing consumer electronic infrastructures can assist in the areas of health care and patient monitoring. This will improve the quality of life of patients, provide early detection for certain ailments, and improve doctor-patient efficiency. The goal of our work is to focus on health-related applications of wireless sensor networks. In this paper we detail our experiences building several prototypes and discuss the driving force behind home health monitoring and how current (and future) technologies will enable automated home health monitoring.
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are a promising technology for ubiquitous, active monitoring in residential, industrial and medical applications. These nodes combine a radio transceiver, microcontroller and sensors into a low power package. A current bottleneck for widespread adoption of WSN’s is the power supplies. While the power demands can be somewhat alleviated through novel electronics, any primary battery will have a finite lifetime. Energy harvesting, from ambient vibration, light, and heat sources, offers an opportunity to significantly extend the lifetime of the nodes and possibly provide perpetual power. Thermal energy is an ideal source for WSNs due to the availability of low-grade ambient waste heat sources. Thermoelectric devices convert temperature gradients into DC electric power in compact form factors. Efficient device designs require hundreds of high-aspect ratio semi-conductor microelements fabricated electrically in series and thermally in parallel. This design requirement presents problems for standard microfabrication techniques due to thickness limitations of standard semiconductor processes. We present a new method of contact dispenser printing, specifically developed to additively create microscale generators. Initial materials performance results show promising results and are further detailed in this work.
The PicoCube is a 1cm 3 sensor node using harvested energy as its source of power. Operating at an average of only 6uW for a tirepressure application, the PicoCube represents a modular and integrated approach to the design of nodes for wireless sensor networks. It combines advanced ultra-low power circuit techniques with system-level power management. A simple packaging approach allows the modules comprising the node to fit into 1 cm 3 in a reliable fashion.
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