Patient Monitoring via Mobile Ad Hoc Network: Power Management, Reliability, and Delays

ABSTRACT PATIENT MONITORING VIA MOBILE AD HOC NETWORK - MAXIMIZING RELIABILITY WHILE MINIMIZING POWER USAGE AND DELAYS BY SWETA SNEHA May 22nd, 2008 Committee Chair: Dr. Upkar Varshney Major Department: Computer Information Systems Comprehensive monitoring of patients based on wireless and mobile technologies has been proposed for early detection of anomalies, provision of prompt medical attention, and corresponding reduction in healthcare expenses associated with unnecessary hospitalizations and treatment. However the quality and reliability of patient monitoring applications have not been satisfactory, primarily due to their sole dependence on infrastructure-oriented wireless networks such as wide-area cellular networks and wireless LANs with unpredictable and spotty coverage. The current research is exploratory in nature and seeks to investigate the feasibility of leveraging mobile ad hoc network for extending the coverage of infrastructure oriented networks when the coverage from the latter is limited/non-existent. Although exciting, there are several challenges associated with leveraging mobile ad hoc network in the context of patient monitoring. The current research focuses on power management of the low-powered monitoring devices with the goal to maximize reliability and minimize delays. The PRD protocols leveraging variable-rate transmit power and the PM-PRD scheme are designed to achieve the aforementioned objective. The PRD protocols manage power transmitted by the source and intermediate routing devices in end to end signal transmission with the obejective to maximize end to end reliability. The PM-PRD scheme operationalizes an appropriate PRD protocol in end to end signal transmission for diverse patient monitoring scenarios with the objective to maximize reliability, optimize power usage, and minimize delays in end to end signal transmission. Analytical modeling technique is utilized for modeling diverse monitoring scenarios in terms of the independent variables and assessing the performance of the research artifacts in terms of the dependent variables. The evaluation criterion of the research artifacts is maximization of reliability and minimization of power usage and delays for diverse monitoring scenarios. The performance evaluation of the PRD protocols is based on maximization of end to end reliability in signal transmission. The utility of the PM-PRD scheme is associated with operationalizing an appropriate protocol for a given monitoring scenario. Appropriateness of a protocol for a given scenario is based on the performance of the PRD protocols with respect to the dependent variables (i.e., end to end reliability, end to end power usage, and end to end delays). Hence the performance evaluation of the PRD protocols in terms of the dependent variables is utilized to (a) discover the best protocol and (b) validate the accuracy and utility of the PM-PRD scheme in allocating the best protocol for diverse monitoring scenarios. The results validate the effectiveness of the research artifacts in maximizing reliability while minimizing power usage and delays in end to end signal transmission via a multi-hop mobile ad hoc network. Consequently the research establishes the feasibility of multi-hop mobile ad hoc network in supplementing the spotty network coverage of infrastructure oriented networks thereby enhancing the quality and dependability of the process of signal transmission associated with patient monitoring applications