FPGA based system design suitable for wireless health monitoring employing intelligent RF module

Abstract

The aim of this study is to design and develop a wireless sensor system integrating 24 bits analog to digital converter (ADC) and long range RF transceiver unit. The system is reading from two types of sensors, pressure and temperature. The serial communication between the ADC unit and RF transceiver is controlled by Spartan-3 FPGA device. A number of tasks are implemented by the FPGA device like interfacing, buffering and compression. A capacitive interface circuit has been employed for the pressure sensors and it is based on the principle of capacitance-frequency-voltage conversion. The RF transmitter is communicating with the FGPA through handshaking protocol and sending the data through ISM band. The pressure data will be compressed to avoid sending any repeated values aiming further reduction in the power consumption.