Application of ZigBee and RFID Technologies in Healthcare in Conjunction with the Internet of Things

Abstract

The paper outlines the application of ZigBee and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies using the Internet of Things (IoT) in a healthcare environment. The Internet of Things, RFID, ZigBee and Cloud computing are emerging technologies in computing, and the association between them can be used to control complex human interaction and to reduce cost and task times through connecting Smart devices to the Internet. The extraordinary growth of those technologies has made it possible to identify, locate and track objects in various environments. These technologies could allow pervasive computing systems to be more efficiently managed in terms of locating and tracking of objects in future operations. RFID technology is a non-contact identification that does not require direct line of sight to the target object. RFID is cheap (<5 p for passive tag) and reliable, but the coverage zone is limited especially for a passive tag (<11m). In the proposed system, the combination of ZigBee and RFID is designed from two aspects, firstly to provide access control and location position and secondly, to use low power output as ZigBee devices offer a larger coverage to monitor and to confirm the location of the object and continually check the position of the target objects. The proposed system uses the combination of both emerging technologies with ZigBee used to detect and locate an object and RFID used to identify the 'gate' or 'door' positions of an object at designated floor level.