IETE Journal of Research

ISSN: 0377-2063 (Print) 0974-780X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tijr20

An Intelligent and Power Efficient Biomedical

Sensor Node for Wireless Cardiovascular Health
Monitoring

Soumyak Chandra, Rajarshi Gupta, Saurav Ghosh & Sanjoy Mondal

To cite this article: Soumyak Chandra, Rajarshi Gupta, Saurav Ghosh & Sanjoy Mondal (2019):
An Intelligent and Power Efficient Biomedical Sensor Node for Wireless Cardiovascular Health
Monitoring, IETE Journal of Research, DOI: 10.1080/03772063.2019.1611489

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03772063.2019.1611489

Published online: 16 May 2019.

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IETE JOURNAL OF RESEARCH
https://doi.org/10.1080/03772063.2019.1611489

An Intelligent and Power Efficient Biomedical Sensor Node for Wireless

Cardiovascular Health Monitoring
Soumyak Chandra 1 , Rajarshi Gupta 1 , Saurav Ghosh 2 and Sanjoy Mondal2
1 Electrical Engineering Section, Department of Applied Physics, University of Calcutta, Kolkata 700009, India; 2 AK Choudhury School of
Information Technology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata 700098 India

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Wireless human health monitoring using different techniques has been a popular research area in Biomedical sensor node;
the last few decades. In this paper, we describe the development of a biomedical sensor node (BSN) intelligent routing; latency;
for short-range monitoring of static cardiovascular patients using a supervisory computer. In partic- power efficiency; reliability;
ular, the present research focuses on developing (a) an intelligent hybrid routing algorithm which wireless patient monitoring;
ZigBee
takes care of intermediate node(s) failure condition; (b) improved packet delivery ratio with the reli-
ability and efficient use of BSN’s battery power. A data compression algorithm in the BSNs further
enhanced the communication channel efficiency. With 15 BSNs hardware implemented and tested
over a floor area of 93 m2 to collect electrocardiogram and finger pulse signals, we achieved aver-
age packet reception accuracy over 98.45% taken cumulatively over 200 trails, along with a latency
of 1.58 s per data packet with three faulty BSNs and maximum number of allowable transmission
attempts in each hop. A simulation study with the first-order radio model, using 100 BSNs under nine
faulty nodes and worst-case scenario, yielded a node power consumption of 3.49 mW per packet and
a latency of 22 s per data packet. The performance results are superior to those of similar published
works on wireless biomedical health monitoring using wireless sensor networks. The developed sys-
tem can provide a low-cost solution for patient monitoring at indoor hospital wards in developing
nations like India.

1. INTRODUCTION trade-off between the radio part and signal conditioning

Wireless medical health monitoring has been one of the
key areas of research for electrical and electronic engi-
neering during the last decades. The application can be
broadly divided into three categories, viz., (a) remote pre-
and post-hospital patient monitoring using high-speed
dedicated data link [1]; (b) monitoring of elderly patients
under regular activities [2], and (c) multiple patient mon-
itoring in hospital wards [3]. Typically these systems
consist of three modules, viz., patient data acquisition
unit(s), communication unit and receiving end computer.
A prime research thrust has been focused on the develop-
ment of miniature and power efficient biomedical sensor
nodes for increased patient comfort and mobility [4–6].
The main feature of such developments is integration of
signal conditioning, microcontroller and wireless mod-
ule in a single circuit board with the requirement of
low power. In [4], a 100 μW ECG acquisition circuit is
proposed. A low-power heart rate and respiratory rate
estimation sensor is described in [5] with dual Blue-
tooth and ZigBee interface used for driver drowsiness
detection. The work in [6] provides applications of fur-
ther integration of radio part and power consumption
in a sensor node.
Over the last decades, extensive research has been car-
ried out for monitoring multiple patients over a wireless
sensor network [7]. In such applications, ZigBee proto-
col (IEEE 802.15.4) became very popular, due to some
of its attractive features like low power ( ∼ mW), mod-
erate data delivery (250 kbps) and in-built encryption
mechanism [8]. The three main constraints in wireless
sensor network (WSN) applications are energy efficiency,
latency and node failure. The medium access control
(MAC) layer of ZigBee can be customized to accomplish
several goals like optimal power consumption, transmis-
sion delay and data reliability [9], which are interrelated
and often contradictory parameters. Low-energy adap-
tive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) [10] is one pioneering
approach that proposed data aggregation before trans-
mission to a base station (sink) using a time division
multiple access (TDMA) scheme decided by the cluster
head for each cluster node. An improved scheme, named
power efficient gathering in sensor information systems
(PEGASIS), [11] provided a chain-based protocol that

© 2019 IETE
2 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE
enables data aggregation at each hop between neigh-
bouring nodes, reducing the overall data traffic to base
station and energy consumption. By simultaneous trans-
missions between nodes with code division multiple
access (CDMA), the latency can also be reduced using
this scheme. Another important factor is the retrans-
mission attempts with acknowledgement between neigh-
bouring nodes. This ensures better quality of service
(QoS), but contributes to network delay and energy con-
sumption over each retransmission attempt. In [12], an
anycast routing strategy is proposed that utilized on-
demand distance vector (AODV) principle to automat-
ically detect the neighbouring active nodes in a Zig-
Bee network. The technique achieved reduced trans-
mission delay over multicast/broadcast approaches for
fall detection of elderly patient(s). An efficient power-
saving strategy and synchronization with master some-
times adopted by modulating the duty cycle of the nodes.
A distributed slot assignment scheme in ZigBee tree
network is reported in [13] to simultaneously address
two issues, viz., node latency and power consumption.
Contention-based protocols, named carrier sense mul-
tiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA), are also
to enable only one node to communicate at a time
based on the presence of carrier signal [14]. Using tiny-
sized packet this mechanism can also reduce delay in a
small network. Few notable approaches are described for
energy optimization using hybrid unequal clustering [15]
and flexible data transfer time slots among nodes to adapt
dynamic traffic pattern in a network [16].
In the context of biomedical health monitoring, most of
the reported works addressed node failure challenges,
low latency in emergency condition and energy opti-
mizations [17–19]. The present research is an extension
of our previous works [20] and [21], where we devel-
oped a short- range peer-to-peer connectivity between
the patient and a host computer for ECG acquisition
using a telephone line and a wireless system, respectively.
In the present work, we report a networking scheme
where multiple patients can be monitored over short
range. Towards this objective, a biomedical sensor node
(BSN) was developed which can acquire and transmit
the cardiovascular signals (in compressed format) using
a wireless network to a local host. The routing is a combi-
nation of broadcast and unicast techniques. In particular,
we focus on three key aspects for an efficient system
design and implementation. First, a “fail-safe” network
architecture using an intelligent routing algorithm with
regard to data collection; second, enhancing node power
efficiency to deliver data packets to neighbouring BSNs;
and third, low latency of data collection at the super-
visory computer. The hardware testing was successfully
implemented using 15 BSNs within a hospital ward floor
area of 93 m2 . We also describe the latency and energy
consumption model under a simulation platform, con-
sidering a 100 node network.
2. METHODOLOGY
The complete monitoring system consists of a group of
BSNs, each dedicated to one patient, one master sen-
sor node (MSN) and one supervisory computer (Host
PC). The MSN is not attached to any patient and consists
of all components as that in BSN except the biomedical
sensors. When patient data are requested from a partic-
ular BSN, the command is initiated from the Host PC. It
can acquire data from one patient (BSN) at a time. The
Host PC acts as the central repository of the data col-
lected from the individual BSN. ECG and PPG data are
finally received through the USB port in a compressed
format using a ZigBee module a simple 8-bit Universal
Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) format and
stored in a text file.
2.1 Biomedical Sensor Node
The functional block diagram of a BSN is shown in
Figure 1. It consists of a single-lead electrocardio-
gram (ECG-Einthoven’s lead I) and a photoplethysmo-
gram (PPG) sensor. We used AD8232 fully integrated
single-lead front end from analogue devices [22] and a
transmission-type PPG sensor with signal conditioning
from Kyoto Electronics [23]. For ECG, a 40 Hz fourth-
order Butterworth filter was used additionally.
The laboratory prototype printed circuit board (PCB)
layout, shown in Figure 1(b) and (c), comes in a size
6 cm × 8 cm. The ECG and PPG signals were sampled at
250 and 60 Hz, respectively, both at 10-bit resolution. An
ATmega328 microcontroller (MCU) in the BSN acquires
ECG and PPG, storing them in the SD card, compresses
the data, and also controls the XBee s1 module’s MAC
layer for data transmission and command reception [24].
The BSN is powered by a standalone 2200 mAh Li-Ion
battery.
2.1.1 Signal Conditioning of ECG and PPG Signals
The schematic circuits for signal conditioning for ECG
signals are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2(a) details power
conditioning circuit of the entire BSN board for the
OPMAPs, MCU and XBee with a 3.3 V supply. The out-
put of the AD8232 is further amplified and filtered in
two successive stages, stage 1 and stage 2, each having
second-order low-pass Butterworth filters as shown in
Figure 2(b) and (c), respectively. The cut-off frequency
 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE 3

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 1: BSN: (a) functional diagram; (b) top side PCB layout and
(c) bottom side PCB layout
Figure 2: ECG signal conditioning circuit: (a) power conditioning;
of the filter in each stage is given by (b) filter stage 1; (c) filter stage 2; (d) DC biasing circuit

1
fc = (1)
2π(RC)
2.1.2 Mode of Operation of Hybrid ZigBee Routing
where R = R2 = R1 = R5 = R6; C = C1 = C2 = C3 Technique
= C4. The total gain achieved in stage 1 and stage 2 is The activities of the BSN under “active mode” can be
given as divided into “initialization session” and “data transfer
session”. The objective of “initialization session” is to
  
R3 R8 know the actual number of available BSNs, synchronize
G = G1 × G2 = 1 + 1+ (2) them (in case they are powered on a different times) and
R4 R7
setting the routing path of each under the guidance of the
The final stage, as shown in Figure 2(c), provides a DC MSN. The sequence of operation is given as
bias to get unipolar output. The objective of the signal
conditioning circuit is to the present the ECG and PPG (1) the Host PC generates a “sync” pulse directed to the
at the input of the ADC channel of AT328 in the range MSN, which in turn, generates a global “HELLO”
0–3.3 V. message in the broadcast mode to all BSNs;
4 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE

(2) the BSNs wait for this pulse after being powered on.
Upon receiving this “HELLO” message, the BSNs
respond with their relative position to the MSN;
(3) the MSN sets the routing path by checking the
receiving signal strength from the individual BSNs
and forms an “address stack”;
(4) the MSN supplies the respective routing paths for all
the individual BSNs, one by one, through handshak-
ing mode (unicast routing);
(5) finally, this address stack along with the participating
BSN is sent to the Host PC. The Host PC refreshes its
user interface with available BSNs highlighted on the
front panel;
(6) if the data transfer request is not initiated from the
Host PC within a certain time, all BSNs go to the
“cyclic sleep mode”.

The algorithm flowchart for describing BSN activity is

provided in Figure 3. The sequence of events is illustrated
in Figure 4, using a 15-node network, and assuming that
BSN#6 and BSN#11 are switched off. Thus, the remaining
13 nodes will be called participating sensor nodes (PSN).
For illustration, we consider N#3 is the requested BSN,
where from the ECG and PPG are to be collected. The
format of the transmitted packet from an individual BSN
is given as

|Packet Sr. No.| patient ID| compressed 40 bytes ECG

data| compressed 10 bytes PPG data| 2 bytes cyclic redun-
dancy check (CRC) check. The steps for data transfer
session are given with reference to Figure 4:

(1) The Host PC directly initiates a command to the
requested node (here N #3), shown in path C1.
(2) The N#3 informs MSN about this request to prevent
the Host PC to initiate any further request to any
other BSN till the current session is completed. This
is shown in path 2.
(3) The MSN puts the N#1, N#2, N#8 and N#9 in “cyclic
sleep mode” using unicast addressing, as they are not
in the routing stack of N#3.
(4) ECG and PPG data are collected at N#3 and then
compressed data packets are routed through the path
N#3 → N#4 → N#5 → N#12 → N#13 → N#7 →
N#14 → N#15 → Host PC (shown in dashed arrows).
The algorithm steps for routing at any intermediate
BSN are shown in Figure 5. At each stage, a 2-byte
CRC is carried out to ascertain the data integrity.
(5) After the data transfer is successfully over, The BSN#
3 informs MSN (shown in path 5).
(6) The MSN again generates a “HELLO” message in
broadcast mode to all MSNs, which puts them in
“cyclic sleep mode”.
Figure 3: Typical activity of a BSN after being powered on
At step 4 mentioned above, a compression algorithm was
applied to reduce the data volume further so that trans-
mission time can be reduced. For ECG and PPG data
stored at different memory blocks, a zonal complexity-
based modified delta compression technique was applied.
The detail of the algorithm is available in [25,26]. The
intelligent routing feature was implemented in each BSN
to cater to the two unpredictable situations. First, the
BSNs which are not in the PSN map during the initial-
ization session can participate in the next session if they
are available/powered on later. Thus, average hopping
distances between neighbouring nodes are reduced, and
so the power consumption. Secondly, a sudden node(s)
failure condition during a “data transfer session” can be
counteracted by automatic diversion of the hopping path
of the data packet(s). This is illustrated using Figure 4
with dashed and dotted arrows. We assume that N#4 and
thereafter N#13 fail during the current data transfer ses-
sion from N#3. The data originating node N#3 diverts
 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE 5

Figure 4: A data transfer sequence from BSN #3 illustrated using a 15-node network

Figure 5: Schematic flowchart of the intelligent routing algorithm at kth node

the routing path to N#10, being the next neighbouring
node. When N#13 goes off, similarly, N#12 automatically
diverts the next hopping path to N#7.
The routing algorithm to transfer a single data packet
in any intermediate node (say kth) in an M-hop (con-
sidering the available nodes in the initialization session
and 1 < k < M) data path is illustrated in Figure 5. The
number of nodes in address stack of kth.BSN, g = M − k.
There are two tasks of an intermediate routing node, viz.,
receiving a data packet from the previous BSN (shown
in path a, b, c), checking the CRC and then passing the
same to the next node (shown in path c, d, e . . . .g).
At each node, CRC check (CRC ACK) is done first to
ensure data reliability. For ease of discussion, we assume
that the packet is successfully received at kth node from
6 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE
the preceding one. For onward transfer to the following
node, if the CRC ACK is not received from the (k + 1)th
node within 100 ms, then the kth node tries to send the
same packet again (shown as d, e, f, g, and d path). After
three unsuccessful attempts, it transfers the next avail-
able node from the address stack (shown as h, d path).
Only when the data packet is successfully received at the
(k + 1)th node, the final ACK is sent to (k − 1)th node by
the kth node with a request (shown as g–i path) to trans-
fer next data packet. This ensures that sudden failure of
kth node will not incur any loss of data packets. This pro-
vides a “fail-safe” architecture to the network as far as an
intermediate node failure is concerned. During the data
transfer session, the kth node (k can be any intermediate
routing node) always checks the acknowledgement from
the (k + 1)th node three times and forwards the packet to
the (k + 2)th node as per its routing address stack. This
also ensures the shortest path hopping of data packets,
leading to minimum power consumption.
2.2 Energy Consumption and Latency Estimation
in BSN
A first-order energy model, as detailed in Section 2.2.1, is
used to account for the transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx)
energy losses in BSNs. A brief theoretical background
is outlined in Sections 2.2.2 and 2.2.3 for estimating
data latency and energy loss, respectively. Our analysis
accounts for the presence of consecutive faulty BSNs in
the scenario. Furthermore, due to the indoor environ-
ment, the probability p remains fixed for successful data
transmission between any two nodes irrespective of their
locations.
2.2.1 Energy Model
A first-order radio model is considered in our simula-
tion in line with [10,27] to account for loss in energy due
to both transmission and reception at a BSN. The model
accounts for two major sources for this loss namely to run
the radio electronics and power amplifier. Tx and Rx are
separated by a distance d, which if less than or equal to a
threshold distance d0 leads to d2 power loss, as shown in
the following equation. Due to indoor environment it is
logical to assume the same in our simulation. In order to
transmit an m-bit message over a distance d, the Tx radio
consumes the energy given by
ETx (m, d) = ETx - elec (m) + ETx - amp (m, d)
= Eelec m + εfs md2 if d ≤ d0
Again, to receive this message the Rx radio consumes the
energy given by
ERx (m) = ERx - elec (m) = Eelec m
The energy term in Equation (3), ETx−elec (m) repre-
sents the amount required for processing m-bit data and
ETx−amp (m,d) is required to amplify the signal so that
it is decodable at a distance d in the Rx. At the Rx side
the received signal must be processed incurring a loss
of ERx−elec (m) as shown in equation (4). The constant,
namely εfs (typical value of 10 pJ/bit/m2 ), depends on the
environmental parameters and channel encoding tech-
niques used. Every time a data packet is transmitted
across a hop, it is processed at the intermediate node. So
the energy loss (Qd ) to process and transmit a 50-byte
data packet across a hop distance d is given by
Qd = 400Eelec + 400εfs d2 (5)
2.2.2 Latency Estimation
The system latency gives the response time which is
estimated in terms of the following parameters:
data packet size S = 50 bytes,
number of data packets in a patient’s message M = 26
packets = L (say),
processing and transmission time of a data packet across
a hop = Xt ,
number of times a packet is transmitted = Nt ,
successful packet transmission probability across a
hop = p,
maximum number of attempted transmissions across a
hop = k,
energy dissipated to process and transmit a data packet
across a hop distance d = Qd ,
channel access time = σ c ,
time required by transmitter to receive ACK from
receiver = σ a ,
time out period at transmitter for retransmission = σ T
(σ T > σ a ),
processing and transmission time of a data packet includ-
ing σ c and σ A across a hop = X̄t .
A transmission failure can occur due to external channel
interference, presence of dynamic obstacles or an inter-
mediate receiving BSN can be down. This can be con-
cluded after k unsuccessful transmission attempts. We
have the probabilities of successful transmission (Prsucc )
after Nt = i tries and failure (Prfail ) across a hop for a data
packet as follows:
Prsucc = (pktsucc |Nt = i) = p(1 − p)i−1
(3)
∀i = 1, 2, . . . , k.
Prfail = (pktfail |Nt = k) = (1 − p)k (6)
We assume (σ T = σ A ) for simplification of analysis.
(4) It can be shown that the expected processing and
 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE 7

Table 1: Latency and energy dissipated across a hop

No. of bytes
Number of Total transmitted Energy
transmissions (Nt ) Outcome Event probability consumed time (ignoring ACKs) dissipated
1 Success P 1(σ c + Xt) +σ A S Qd
2 Success p(1 − p) 2(σ c + Xt) + σ T + σ A 2S 2Qd
3 Success p(1 − p)2 3(σ c + Xt) + 2σ T + σ A 3S 3Qd
... ... ... ... ... ...
k Success p(1 − p)k − 1 k(σ c + Xt) + (k-1) σ T + σ A kS kQd
k Failure (1 − p)k k(σ c + Xt +σ T) kS kQd

Figure 6: Hardware testing of BSN: (a) signal conditioning of ECG and (b) signal conditioning of PPG; (c) screenshot of acquired ECG and
PPG signals from node #3 in the host PC

transmission delay of 50-byte data packet across a sin- There is theoretically no change in latency for a sin-
gle hop including channel access and acknowledgement gle BSN fault. Similar argument holds for multiple BSN
times is given by faults.

1 2.2.3 Energy Consumption Estimation

E[Xt ] = (σc + Xt + σT ) (7)
p It can be shown that the energy consumed in routing a
message Me comprising L packets of 50 bytes each from
Similarly, the expected processing and transmission delay the originating node to the Host PC along the routing
of a message across a single hop including channel access path decided by MSN, having i intermediate nodes out
and acknowledgement times is given by of which u are faulty in consecutive locations, is given by
L
E[Mt ] = LE[Xt ] = (σc + XT + σT ) (8) 
u+1
p E [Me , i, u ] = (i − u) L E[Qd ] + L E[Qkd ] (10)
k=1
The expected end-to-end latency for message Mt,i origi-
nating from a node with i intermediate nodes to the Host The receiving energy of a node is neglected. If we put
PC, ignoring the receiving delay, is given by u = 0 we get E [Me , i, 0] , i.e. the no error case. In the
case of u consecutive errors we have u out of i inter-
E[Mt,i ] = (i + 1)E[Xt ]L (9) mediate nodes that does not transmit resulting in a
8 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE
Figure 7: Packet reception accuracy against nodes disengaged
saving
 of uLE[Qd ] Joules but at the cost of additional
L u+1
k=2 E[Qkd ]Joules. Table 1 shows the energy dissi-
pation and consumed time across a hop for different
transmissions of S byte packet.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
3.1 Hardware Experimentation Results
Figure 6(a) and (b) shows the signal conditioning per-
formance of ECG and PPG signals, respectively, during
BSN development stage. In Figure 6(c) a screen shot of
the acquired ECG and PPG signals from N#3 is shown in
Host PC. The Host PC displays the available and unavail-
able BSNs (shown in crossed circle). The user can select
the BSN to be requested, one at a time, and short or
long duration acquisition option by the radio button.
The acquired data can be saved in text files also using
the “File” menu. Each BSN supports two types of data
collection, viz., long (30 min) and short (10 s). For long
duration acquisition, the ECG and PPG data are stored
in a compressed form in the secure digital (SD) card
and not transferred over sensor network to Host PC. A
pilot study was done at an indoor patient ward of Medi-
cal College and Hospital, Kolkata, India with 15 patients.
In the first stage, the data reception accuracy was esti-
mated using a 15-node network, hardware implemented
in a hospital ward of 93 m2 area. For each trial, the per-
formance parameters of farthest BSN from the Host PC
were estimated. An experiment was performed with 1–14
faulty BSNs (created intentionally). The average packet
reception accuracy over 200 independent trials, spanned
over a period of 3–4 months for 10 s data, is provided in
Figure 7.
During each trial, dynamic obstacles were imposed in
the form of personnel movements over the floor area.
The average packet reception accuracy was 98.45%. As
the number of PSNs was increased, the packet recep-
tion accuracy slightly dropped from 100% due to large
Table 2: Hardware latency for a 15-node network with faulty
nodes
Success at
transmission Latency tlat (in
Faulty nodes (f ) attempt (k) s)
1 1 1.28
2 2.26
3 3.25
2 1 1.43
2 2.34
3 3.25
3 1 1.58
2 2.42
3 3.25
distance between neighbouring BSNs. Finally, at all faulty
nodes, the situation becomes the same as that of a peer-
to-peer transmission. For each trial, up to three BSNs
were put under the switched-off condition to simulate
node failure condition. The actual transmission and pro-
cessing time per packet per BSN was 75.6 ms. Hardware
latency per packet as found under different faulty nodes
is shown in Table 2. Here k indicates success at kth trans-
mission attempt. It can be observed that the latency for
transmission attempts with k = 3 for faulty nodes f = 1,
2 and 3 are equal. This is because with the increase of
faulty nodes, the number of hops is also reduced. The
generalized latency expression for N number of nodes is
given as
tlat = 75.6 × [3f + {k(N − f − 1) + 1}] (11)
3.2 Latency and Energy Calculation
For the simulation study, we consider a network con-
sisting of 100 nodes (BSN), fixed in location, deployed
over an area of 15.24 m × 37 m, with no static obsta-
cles in between the nodes, but the dynamic ones may be
present due to the movement of the hospital personnel.
The BSNs are powered with 3.7 V and 2200 mAh bat-
tery. The energy and latency calculation are based on
the following assumptions: (a) a total of 26 packets of 50
bytes each are generated during each collection from a
BSN; (b) from each BSN data are collected for 20 s per
day (twice, 10 s each); (c) each node also participates in
routing data for other nodes, and is engaged 300 s for
each collection cycle; (d) when no data are being gen-
erated the nodes enter the sleep mode. Thus, during a
day the nodes collectively remain awake for 3 h 22 min.
The worst-case latency per packet (of 50 bytes) is shown
in Figure 8 for the farthest node against the number of
faulty BSNs. The receiving delay at a node is ignored. It
is observed that for maximum three attempted transmis-
sions (which are very unusual) at each hop, the latency
per data packet of data is around 23 s. Under a similar
condition, the energy consumption (in J/packet) in each
 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE 9

Table 3: Comparison of power consumption in BSN with pub-

lished works
Deployment
Power scenario
consumption (mW) Data rates (topology/number
Work per packet (bytes/s) of nodes)
Cha [3] 132 6 8 nodes
Boquete [28] 0.6309 9600 P–P
Auteri [29] 96.7 NA P–P
Chen [12] – 200 30–50 nodes
Wang [30] 23.25 NA P–P
Present work 3.49 (worst case) 661 100 nodes

Figure 8: Latency against number of faulty nodes f = 0, 1,
2, . . . ,9 with total number of deployed BSNs set to 100 requiring
k transmissions across a link
power consumption, the proposed research clearly out-
performs [3, 6, 27]. In [28], a ZigBee-based peer-to-
peer communication is reported to acquire eight different
biopotentials in a PC. The system is for continuous usage
and requires manual operation. Although the power con-
sumption is less than that in the proposed work, the
device is bulkier and its performance if connected in a
wireless network is still not tested.

Figure 9: Power consumption against number of faulty nodes
(f ) = 0, 1, 2 . . . 9 (number of BSN = 100)
BSN along a routing path involving all the BSNs is plot-
ted in Figure 9(a) against the number of faulty BSNs,
f = 0, 1, 2, . . . , 9 respectively. The power consumption
per packet, shown in Figure 9(b), is computed by divid-
ing the energy consumption by the respective latency.
Since the latency and energy consumption is highest, the
power consumption is least at k = 3, and the maximum
for k = 1. As the number of faulty nodes (f ) increases, the
power consumption remains almost constant for k = 1
and 2, since the faulty nodes do not transmit. However,
for k = 3, the power consumption marginally increases
as the power and latency increases with failed attempts
(up to k = 2).
Table 3 shows the comparison of power consumption of
our model with the published literature in similar area.
The packet size is only mentioned in [12]. In terms of
4. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we describe the development of a power
efficient and intelligent BSN which provides low latency
in monitoring a group of patients distributed in a small
hospital ward. A significant research outcome is the intel-
ligent routing algorithm which provides high reliability
and low latency in received data packets in the host PC.
The hardware experimental validation using 15 BSNs
provided two important parameters related for network
performance. The first, hardware latency of 1.58 s per
data packet for three faulty BSNs with maximum allow-
able transmission attempts. The second, packet reception
accuracy was of 96.7% under the worst-case scenario (all
relaying BSN fault). The hardware experimentation was
supplemented by a software simulation considering 100
BSNs under various faulty nodes with maximum allow-
able transmission attempts between successive nodes.
Here, the latency per data packet is around 23 s, which is
lower than that reported in similar works. In a develop-
ing nation like India, there is an acute shortage of medical
practitioners and nursing personnel [31]. Thus, the BSN
can offer a low-cost alternative solution against tradi-
tional health monitoring system in a small-sized hospital
ward.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors sincerely thank Dr Arunansu Talukdar, Profes-
sor, Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata for his coopera-
tion in performance testing of the BSNs in the hospital ward.
The authors also thank the SAP DRS-II program (2015–2020)
from University Grants Commission (UGC) at Department
of Applied Physics, University of Calcutta for the technical
support.
10 S. CHANDRA ET AL.: AN INTELLIGENT AND POWER EFFICIENT BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODE
FUNDING
The work is funded by Department of Higher Education,
Science & Technology and Biotechnology (DHESTB), Govt.
of West Bengal [sanction No.851(sanc.)/ST/P/S&T/6G-2/2013
dtd: 11/01/2016].
ORCID
Soumyak Chandra http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8369-3495
Rajarshi Gupta http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5964-7683
Saurav Ghosh http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9015-9004
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Authors
Soumyak Chandra is currently a Junior
Research Fellow (JRF) attached to the
project funded by Department of Higher
Education, Science & Technology and
Biotechnology (DHESTB), Govt. of West
Bengal at Department of Applied Physics,
University of Calcutta. He obtained B.
Tech in Electronics and Communication
Engineering in 2013. He has one Indian copyright to his credit.
His research interests are intelligent systems, networking and
medical instrumentation.
Corresponding author. Email: scaphy_rs@caluniv.ac.in
Rajarshi Gupta is currently an Asso-
ciate Professor at Electrical Engineering
Section, Dept. of Applied Physics at Uni-
versity of Calcutta, India. His research
interests include cardiovascular signal
measurements and intelligent health mon-
itoring. He has 49 publications in National
and International peer-reviewed Journals
and conferences, one Indian copyright, two book chapters and
one book. Currently he is guiding three PhD students and one
scholar has been awarded PhD.
Email: rgaphy@caluniv.ac.in
11
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Saurav Ghosh is currently an Assistant
Professor at A.K Choudhury School of
Information Technology, University of
Calcutta, India. His research interests are
Mobile Crowd Sensing, Sensor Networks
and Machine Learning. He has a number
of publications in reputed International
Journals and conferences. He is currently
guiding two PhD scholars and one scholar has been awarded
PhD.
Email: sauravghoshcu@gmail.com
Sanjoy Mondal is currently a Rajiv Gandhi
Senior Research Fellow at A.K Choudhury
School of Information Technology, Uni-
versity of Calcutta, India. He has com-
pleted MCA and M. Tech in Information
Technology, and currently pursuing PhD
in the area of smart sensing. He has a
number of international conference pub-
lications to his credit.
Email: sanjoymondal1988@gmail.com