A WSN smart medication system

Abstract

In this work, a smart medication system, which employs the wireless sensing network (WSN) technologies, is designed, implemented and demonstrated. The primary functions of the system include the medication reminder and tracking for the patients with chronic diseases. The system can be easily deployed in a nursing home which accommodates many elderly people. Each system consists of a master panel (MP) and seven portable smart pill-boxes (SPB). The MP serves as a network gateway/database for its own smart pillboxes. Each SPB independently provides the functions of medication reminder and monitoring for patients. The routing network among the MPs is constructed using the tree topology. The star topology is used for the communication between each MP and its own seven SPBs. Moreover, by using magnetic sensors, a mechanism is proposed for detecting the existence of pills in a SPB.