Original research articleDevelopment of wireless optical CDMA system for biosignal monitoring

This paper investigates the use of infrared technology in healthcare monitoring to develop a mobile medical system. This is because existing technology is generally based on radio frequency (RF) systems, which might suffer from electromagnetic interference (EMI). Additionally, the effect of the radiation field on medical equipment may lead to misdiagnosis. In answer to these issues, optical wireless links between the medical sensors and the receiver in the middle of the ceiling in a hospital room was examined. From the results, the power efficiency of the mobile optical wireless system to ensure the communication between medical sensors and the receiving point was established. Furthermore, the minimum required transmitted power for the required performance was determined to achieve a higher power autonomy. The results also show that the requirements of a healthcare monitoring application for medical nodes of up to 10 nodes, considering a data rate lower than 1 Mbps, can be achieved using infrared technology. The results prove the superiority of the optical wireless technology over the conventional radio-based communication network in healthcare monitoring systems.