Wireless equipment localization for medical environments

摘要

RFID is a reliable technology to identify objects wirelessly. Medical devices are subjected to various tests and a lot of time is spent to search for the corresponding devices. The high personal costs make this a quite expensive venture. Launching wireless tagging systems in the clinical environment is still difficult, because many devices can be sensitive to interferences caused by the electromagnetic radiation. If a life-sustaining device fails it can be dangerous for the patients. The developed system based on the IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBit transceiver modules in the 2.4 GHz ISM band is able to determine, in which room the equipment can be found. The antennas for the base stations should be polarization insensitive and ensure a room-only coverage to improve the localization and allow the lowest possible RF power during the transmit mode of the modules. All data is stored into an SQL database and can be accessed via browser with nearly every computer system.