Smart Module for Healthcare and Asset Monitoring - Blog #1

Hi Folks !!

It's Cris here with a cool project as part of the Think ON Design Challenge with ON Semiconductor. When I came across this awesome contest Think ON Design Challenge, I was so excited to participate. So without a second thought, I accumulated some rough ideas and put together with an aim to build something in a unique and different way. The idea was as follows:

Aim - To design and develop two smart modules (named as 'Smart Band'  and 'Asset Monitor' for illustration purposes) that can provide possibilities for usage in personal health and asset monitoring, wearables and smart homes. The Smart modules will be developed with RSL10-SENSE-GEVK as the core component connected to a custom designed mobile application via BLE for external access, monitoring, and control.

Work plan - The main intention of this project is to lay down the development of a baseline module that can be extended to the following without any big modifications.

1. Smart monitoring and reporting of healthcare activities / Smart wearable / Ambient Environment monitoring / Elderly monitoring
   This deals with the monitoring and reporting of healthcare-related data to a central server (eg: Atmosphere) so as to generate daily or periodic health care reports. The data includes data collected from the IMU (based on various activities carried out) and the environmental sensors (for checking various conditions of exposure). This can be further extended to monitor ambient environmental conditions for people working in extreme conditions, detect elderly emergency scenarios such as falls, etc.
2. Asset monitoring
   This deals by interfacing the module with the assets for monitoring its movements based on the data obtained from the onboard inertial measurement systems. A real-life example is to monitor the transit of fragile or delicate items such as pets, organs, glass items, cutlery, etc.
3. Smart wireless control of home appliances and gadgets
   This deals with the control of various appliances and gadgets connected to the home network using the NFC interface available in the RSL10-Sense-GEVK. Activities include smart unlock of doors, gesture control of appliances (with the help of IMU data manipulation), auto control of air conditioner (using data from environmental sensors), etc.

In this project, I plan to demonstrate both the Smart healthcare wearable and asset monitoring use-cases.

So keeping these in mind, I applied with this idea to the contest and luckily I got selected as a challenger. While I waited for the kit to arrive, the first step I did was to collect the resources and know more about the same.

Here are some resources that would help us to get an idea of the module and its programming.

Evaluation Boards from ON Semiconductor

Getting Started: Introduction to the ON Semiconductor RSL10 - YouTube

RSL10-SENSE-GEVK

ON Semi RSL10-SENSE-DB-GEVK Sensor Board

RSL10 Sensor Development Kit

The RSL10-SENSE-GEVK is a comprehensive, compact, node-to-cloud IoT sensor platform that allows the development of various Bluetooth Low Energy-based use cases. The board boasts a compact size and an ultra-low-power Bluetooth Low Energy SoC and features a wide range of onboard sensors, including sensors for ambient light, temperature, pressure, humidity, gas, inertia, and magnetism. Along with the hardware and software, the RSL10-SENSE-GEVK includes a mobile app to interact with sensors and actuators.

The board features ON Semiconductor’s RSL10, Industry’s lowest power Bluetooth 5 Certified SoC and several sensors from ON Semiconductor and Bosch. By combining motion, environmental, ambient light sensing with the ultra-low-power of the RSL10, ON Semiconductor is enabling customers to realize a new class of battery-powered static, mobile and wearable smart sensors targeting consumer and industrial applications in the Internet of Things, including worker safety, asset tracking, and smart home sensing.

The main features that I came across are:

• RSL10 SIP: Industry’s lowest power RSL10 Radio SoC
• BME680: Integrated high-accuracy gas, pressure, humidity and temperature sensor, antenna and all passive components in a single, miniature package.
• N24RF64: Dual Interface RFID 64Kb EEPROM Tag, ISO 15693 Compliant with RF, I 2 C Bus and Energy Harvesting.
• BHI160: Integrated low power smart hub 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope.
• BMM150: Low Power, low noise 3-axis digital geomagnetic sensor.
• INMP522: ultra−low power microphone for audio applications.

• I2C: I2C is exposed via the SCL and SDA pins on the 5 pin header.
• Programming Method: Programming the RSL10-SENSE-GEVK involves using the programmer interface in Atmosphere Studio to install embedded firmware. However the RSL10-SENSE-GEVK doesn’t contain a built-in programmer, so it’s used alongside the SEGGER JLink tool to program it. SEGGER’s license doesn’t allow Atmosphere to redistribute the tool ourselves, so you must install the JLink Software and Documentation pack for your operating system before programming.

• Device Power: The RSL10-SENSE-GEVK can be powered either via coin cell battery or external 3.3V into the VCC pin on the 5 pin user header.

Blogs in this series:

Smart Module for Healthcare and Asset Monitoring - Blog #1  [Introduction] --> Current

Smart Module for Healthcare and Asset Monitoring - Blog #2  [Kit Unboxing]

Smart Module for Healthcare and Asset Monitoring - Blog #3  [Software Setup 1]

Smart Module for Healthcare and Asset Monitoring - Blog #4  [Software Setup 2]

Smart Module for Healthcare and Asset Monitoring - Blog #5  [Hardware Setup & Testing]