Hybrid Energy Harvester for Medical Sensor Node toward Real-Time Healthcare Monitoring

In healthcare applications, the remote monitoring for moving patients depends on medical sensor nodes, which should be mobile. Thus, the power mains of medical sensor nodes should be disconnected most of the time to monitor natural movements of patients. In this paper, a self-sustainable medical sensor node is proposed for healthcare monitoring applications. The node implementation consists of a microcontroller unit (MCU), a photo-plethysmography (PPG) sensor, a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) module, and a MPU module that includes a gyroscope with accelerometer. The power supply of the node is a hybrid energy harvester developed to provide a sustainable energy for the sensor node. The harvester is composed of a photovoltaic (PV) panel, a thermoelectric generator (TEG) module, a DC-DC converter, and a super-capacitor. Experimental results illustrate that the proposed node can monitor a physiological data on a mobile device using the BLE Terminal application.