Student Projects
Contact Information
University: Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai.
Team Members (with year of graduation): (1) Vaishnavi Muralidharan, (2) K.Kirthika Meenakshi., (3) D.S.Sugirtha Ruba Rani.
Faculty Advisers: Dr.N.B.Balamurugan,
Email Address: vaishitce@gmail.com
Submission Language : English
Project Information
Title: Telediagnosis System in Ambulance using LabVIEW
Description:
Introduction
The advancement in wireless networking, medical sensors and the interoperability softwares such as NI LabVIEW have created possibilities for improving the emergency care.
The system developed facilitates collaborative and time critical patient care in emergency response community. During a mass causality disaster, the most imminent problem prevalent over there is the number of patients to be monitored and reporting their conditions to the experts. The automaton could ease the work of the responder. This system thus is very helpful as it reports both to the hospital and the traffic authorities simultaneously.
This system has been proposed by assuming the power loss during data transmission through the medium to be ideally zero.
Products
NI LabVIEW 2012-professional.
The Challenge
To develop a system that will transmit the essential details of a person to the hospital personnels and will also send the current position of the ambulance to the traffic control room.
The time that an ambulance takes to reach the hospital (also called the GOLDEN HOUR) and the time taken by the hospital authorities to understand the condition of the patient are crucial in saving a patient’s life. Many incidents have been reported that due to the traffic congestions and traffic jams the ambulance gets stranded in the road and in the worst case, this delay due to the traffic issues have even proved fatal. The proposed system will transmit the details of the patient to the hospital thereby reducing the prehospital setting time and will update its position to the traffic control room, so that the route is cleared if possible
or the ambulance is informed to take an alternate path that is clear.
The Solution
The vital biomedical details of the patient such as the E.C.G measurement , pulse rate, blood pressure, respiratory rates and temperature are measured in the ambulance using sensors and the details are processed using NI LabVIEW. The processed details are sent through GPRS technology as SMS(short messaging service) to the hospital authorities. This process is done periodically till the patient reaches the hospital. The hospital authorities and the doctors through the graphs and the reports and either of the following may be done
1. The doctor can understand the condition of the patient better and can make the necessary requirements quickly.
2. A medical specialist, often located at distant places, may be called on to give emergency treatment, so that the specialist will be made available at the hospital when the patient reaches the hospital.
The position of the ambulance is also monitored using GPS (Global Positioning system).The latitude and longitude positions of the ambulance are sent through the server of the GPS provider to the traffic control room. In order to decode this latitude and longitude positions and to display the position of the ambulance in a map for a better and quick visual understanding of the traffic authorities, NI LabVIEW is used. The traffic authorities after viewing the position of the ambulance can clear the traffic immediately if possible or can communicate to the ambulance to take an alternate route.
SYSTEM CONFIGURATION:
These ECG signals have been simulated using LabVIEW for experimental purpose. The signals are then transmitted using GPRS modem. Thus the signals are transmitted as short packages using GPRS to the hospital. The data thus can be viewed directly in the hospital without much complexity. This process of transmitting the data happens for every 5 minutes. A GPS module is attached in the ambulance. A module for GPS is also available in NI that can be used for finding the latitude and longitude of the ambulance.
Fig:4.shows Data Acquisition from GPS module using LabVIEW. The attached GPS unit in the ambulance sends periodic updates of its location to the route station through the server and the service
provider constantly updates the traffic control room with the latitude and longitude positions of the ambulance.
Fig:5.shows Tracking of places using LabVIEW. In the traffic control room, programming is done in LabVIEW such as the incoming latitude and longitude positions are processed and the position of the ambulance can now be viewed on a map.This helps the traffic authorities to understand the position of the ambulance visually better. The features of the graphical language have made the implementation very easy.
All technologies have limitations, and cannot provide their benefits under all circumstances. When new technology is introduced into the emergency response arena, it is important to note limitations as well as its capabilities.
1. 24*7 connectivity should be made available.
2. A person has to be appointed in the ambulance who should be trained in using the measuring equipments.
3. Due to the chaotic nature of emergencies, our system faces the difficulty of operating in situations that challenge instrumentation designed for use in controlled environment of a clinical situation. For example,
the pulse oximeter sensor used cannot function with nail polish or nail fungus on the patient's fingers.
4. Furthermore, in cold temperatures or in high altitudes, the body responds through vasoconstriction in the peripherals; in the case, blood flow to the fingers is restricted and does not register accurately on the
pulse oximeter.
Benefits of using graphical design:
o This application mainly deals with the acquisition of data, displaying it in graphs and
o then getting the latitude and longitude of a point and displaying it in the map. Hence the features of the graphical language have made the implementation easy. If graphical language is not to be used then the
implementation would have been very complex.
o The training required to perform the measurements in graphical language is much easier and comes handy in case of emergencies involving mass disaster.
o The codes written by us got easily integrated using LabVIEW.
o With the debugging tools in LabVIEW, the execution can be slowed down and the data flow can be seen through the block diagram. The combination of working with higher-level building blocks and improved visibility into our application’s execution results in far less time spent tracking down bugs in our code.
o The errors can be easily detected and rectified.
o The codes can be re used in LabVIEW. This saves a lot of time and also reduces code's complexity.
o The LabVIEW software makes the interfacing very much easier. With the DAQmx cards the data acquisition is fast and more accurate.
o The Compact RIO allows to get real time signals and NI modules for GSM and GPS are also very useful .
o LabVIEW has a optimising compiler and help in creating efficient machine code.
o With LabVIEW, we can create executable files that can run on any PC without having LabVIEW installed.
o The LabVIEW biomedical workbench helps us to process the signal much easily and accurately.
Scope for further research:
The scope lies as LabVIEW can even be used to automate traffic signals. As soon as the information regarding the position of the ambulance reaches the traffic control room, this information can be given to a VI(block diagram) and automatically clears the traffic signals on the ambulance’s way .
Conclusion:
The system has the capacity to develop the scenario of the today’s medical emergency response system. This system will be very much useful in natural calamity and when there is mass disaster. Several medical professionals were contacted and they all appreciated that the idea if implemented would surely help.
Reference:
1. Y. Shieh, Y. Tsai, A. Anavim, M. Shieh, and M. Lin,” Mobile Healthcare: Oppurtunities and Challenges,” in International Journal of Electronic Healthcare,4(2),208-219,2008.
2. F.Tay, D. Guo,L. Xu,M. Nyan, and K. Yap,”MEMS biomonitoring system for Remote Vital Signs Monitoring,: in Journal of the Franklin Institute, 346(6), 531-542, August 2009.
3. A. Sagahyroon, H. Raddy, A. Ghazy, and U. Suleman, “Design and Implementation of a Healthcare Monitoring System,” in International. Journal of Elrctonic Healthcare, 5(1), 68-86, 2009.
4. S. Sneha and U. Varshney, “ A wireless ECG Monitoring system for Pervasive Healthcare,” in International Journal of Electronic Healthcare, 3(1), 32-50, 2007.
5. G.R. Schwartz, Principles and Practice of Emergency Medicine. King of Prussia, PA: Rittenhouse Book Distributors, 1999.
6. Y. Zhang and H. Xiao, “Bluetooth- Based Sensor Network for Remotely Monitoring the Physiological signals of patient,” in IEEE trans. On Information Technology in Biomedicine,13(6), 1040-1048, November
2009.
7. www.ni.com > Academics > Getting started with Labview
9. www.ni.com/whitepaper/7466/en
10. www.cim.mcgill.ca/~paul/LabviewTut.pdf
12. www.filestube.com/l/labview+books
13. www.vernier.com/engineering/ni-labview
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
We would like to thank the service of our host institution( Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai). In particular, We would like to express our gratitude to Dr.V.Abhai kumar, principal, Dr.Mrs. Raju, Head of
Department(ECE), Dr.N.B.Balamurugan, our guide, and our beloved professors Dr. Mohamed Mansoor Roomi, Dr.Mrs.R. Sukanesh, Dr.Velmurugan, Dr. Hariharan, Dr.M.S.K.Manikandan, Dr.Mrs.Sathyabama, Dr.
Vinoth Thiagarajan,Dr. Rajeshwari, Dr. Vivek. We would also like to thank M/s TAFE LIMITED, Madurai, M/s ARAVIND EYE CARE SYSTEMS, Madurai, Managing director, MADURAI RADHA TRANSPORTS, Madurai, SUPREME SCIENTIFICS, Madurai, Mr. Jeyakumar, ACCENTURE, Chennai, JJ Hospital, MADURAI, Apollo Hospital, Madurai. We would also like to thank the doctor consultants Dr. Mayilvaganan,
Dr. Chitra, Dr. Anna roja, Dr. Suresh and Dr. Kumaraswamy who supported us.
Others
Video Link(s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-mFhB_qOqw&feature=youtu.be
