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Vital Signs Tracker is Swallowed, Not Worn

Posted January 21, 2016 12:00 AM by Engineering360 eNewsletter

Skin-contact sensors for measuring vital signs aren't always feasible due to patient discomfort, so MIT researchers advocate monitoring from within. An ingestible electronic sensor under development enables tracking of vital signs from inside the gastrointestinal tract. Once the sensor is swallowed, sound waves acquired by a small microphone are converted into heart rate and respiratory rate using signal processing algorithms. The silicone pill houses the electronics for audio processing and wireless transmission to an external receiver within 3 m. Future designs may include ingestible diagnostics to detect respiratory or heart conditions.

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phph001 Guru Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 1458 Good Answers: 30	#1 Re: Vital Signs Tracker is Swallowed, Not Worn 01/22/2016 5:09 AM
	If the dateline had been April 1 I might have believed it. If you ask a sound engineer to design a microphone to register low levels of low frequency sound I doubt he would come up with a vitamin pill-sized capsule encased in silicone. Actually another paper i found spoke of accelerometers as pickups, which is more believable. The next problem is merely the transmission of radio-frequency waves from inside a fluid-filled environment. The illustration does not help much either - presumably the wires are trailing the remote battery and antenna.
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