IOT: Building a Medical Device

So in general if you want to build a medical device your first design step is: What is the lowest power I can use when designing my device.  Energy in medical devices must be kept low as possible.   In medical devices you usually don’t have to worry too much about complexity, there is no reward for complexity in medical devices.  Unlike operating systems and game design, where complexity is rewarded, with Medical Devices, keep is simple and low power  or the device won’t survive.  Nice thing is, unlike an overly complex game that fails after you spent lot’s of money, the medical device will fail fast, but the cost will be about the same.

So here is a block diagram of an example device, which could be used in items like digital stethoscopes, electrocardiograms, pulse oximeters, ventilators, CPAP machines (big market).  For instance Texas Instruments hardware and software has ben certified by the Continua Health Alliance after passing rigorous testing procedures.  So at a designer can utilize the software created for these devices by Texas Instruments and know the software complies with the medical industries standards.  Using this software in conjunction with Azure and the Health APIs that Microsoft provides is a great way to get started with a biomedical engineering career.

(Diagram from Diagnostic, Patient Monitoring and Therapy Applications Guide, a PDF)

Your device must store sensor data somewhere, over the next few articles we will look at getting the data off the low-power sensor and into the cloud.

Let’s take a look in the next blog at the utilization of a old CPAP machine an upgrade it to using the MSP480FR5969 Launchpad device.