What About Near Field Communication Technology? an Overview with Possible Future Telemedicine Applications
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What about Near Field Communication technology? An overview with possible future telemedicine applications. Enrico M. Staderini Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine, Tromsø, Norway Correspondence: Nasjonalt Senter for Telemedisin, Postboks 35, N-9038 Tromsø, Norway (Fax: +47 7775 4098; Email: [email protected]) Summary Near Field Communication (NFC), jointly developed by giant players in the consumer elec- tronics arena such as Philips and Sony, is the last in a series of ever evolving wireless network- ing technologies for data transfer. The impacts and the potential uses of this technology (ECMA-340 standard) in the medical device field, and telemedicine as well, are analyzed and compared with existing wireless technologies for data and signal transfer. The intrinsically very short range of NFC is all but a limiting factor indeed. Having the communicating devices to be placed intentionally close to communicate, an higher level of security is obtained: a must for medical privacy sensible data exchange. Furthermore, NFC data rate can go as fast as a few hundreds of thousands of bits per second so to provide a channel wide enough for real time biomedical signal transmission. The extremely low power required for NFC operation, which reaches zero on the target in the passive communication mode, is an extra bonus in modern battery operated, and very much battery life concerned, medical devices. It seems that NFC technology may enable new products having new functionalities and new man-machine inter- faces in the future telemedicine systems to come. Introduction Wireless technology started being appreciated by health care providers and medical devices manufacturers in the late ‘90s, just when mobile phone communications began skyrocketing. At that time, as well as today, competing existing standards, or announced standards to come, were one of the issues relenting the process of adopting or integrating wireless technology [1]. Over the time wireless medical devices evolved from the area of telemetry where the main is- sue was that of overcoming a distance which was simply not possible to cover with a cable, to that of guaranteeing mobility over short distances. In parallel, the needs for going wireless changed from the transmission of a signal having a clinical information in it (or one to one conventional telemetry), to the sharing of multimedia content, as text, images, and signals in a many to many architecture. As of today, systems are developed for vital signs transmission from wearable sensors [2], or from space flight simulated conditions [3], or from intelligent sensors avoiding large number of wired connections in medical laboratories [4]. Even infant incubators were connected into a wireless network for monitoring [5]. Another very interesting application, where wireless mode has its mandatory application, is capsule endoscopy using a miniature video camera that can be just swallowed to send live images from the gastrointestinal tract [6], [7]. More recently wireless technology in the health care revamped with applications in nursing [8], or in manag- ing connectivity in medicine [9], or in hospital administration [10], [11], or for the global en- hancement of patient care [12]. Present research activity, pushed forward by the academia, by the medical device industry and by the medical services providers as well, is focused on home health care services without di- rect health personnel involved in, that calls for e-home care. Homes are commonly part of a large network infrastructure like that composed of wired telephony, cable television or broadband connectivity. In this last case wireless technology is required to cover just the “last meter” from a home base station connected in the network to the biomedical sensor or device worn by the citizen free of moving into his/her home. Wireless technology drastically enabled and boosted e-home care applications and even more is expected in the future. The combining of personal computers, the internet and many bio- medical digital transducers made feasible products and services never imagined before. But wireless technology geared up the applications more, giving the subject the freedom of movement and a normal access to everyday life while being monitored. Applications included diabetes screening [13], home cardiorespiratory telemonitoring [14], electrocardiography (ECG) monitoring [15], artificial ventilator monitoring in continuous positive airway pressure treatment (or CPAP) [16] and many others. The technologies span from WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) over GSM-GPRS mobile telephony networks, to Bluetooth, Wireless LAN, and the internet [17], [18]. With the advent of reliable and afford- able telecommunication infrastructures [19] the wireless e-health concept recently has come to manage large healthcare information systems (HIS) in the hospitals [20] and long term care environments as well [21]. Now, in this already crowded wireless e-health arena, the last actor on the scene is the Near Field Communication technology having original performances and characteristics and with the possibilities to play strong and fast a role not just in a niche. As a matter of fact it may be- come the salt of many smart systems for they to be operated effortlessly in the medical field. It is therefore worthwhile for the reader to get acquainted with this not so strange, even some- what exotic, new wireless gadget. The paper is organized in five parts. In the first NFC technology is explained in a very simple mean for the non-technical reader, then a more detailed presentation is done based on the 2 documents of the ECMA standard. A comparison of NFC with existing wireless technologies is made before presenting all the possible applications in medicine, telecare and telehealth. Conclusion are taken considering possible technical and economical feasibility of NFC tech- nology in the future. NFC explained to the people My grandmother was almost an addicted of television programs. I remember her, sitting on the sofa, watching to television for hours (or better just listening to, while hand-knitting wool items for her many nephews). She was all but a brainless or superficial spectator! Although quite aged, she was always commenting programs and often expressing clear and motivated criticisms. One day a program should have been particularly silly and she asked me to know if the local TV broadcasting company might “technically” notice the general disagreement of the people which may organize a protest consisting in suddenly switching off all the receiving TV sets in their area. Apart from the ingenuity of the action of protest, I was amused (and today I am) at the fact that my granny (well before interactive digital TV be invented) was looking for a way for sending information back to the TV broadcasting company (disagreement in this case) using just a receiver! While I was firmly replying “no” to her, I felt that may be I should say “yes”, if only the antennas should be close enough for the receiving one to disturb the near field (electromagnetic field) irradiated by the transmitting one. Energy in the far field will never interact any more with the transmitting antenna so the transmitter has no possibility to “know” whatever you make of that energy (unless you reflect it or backscatter), but, in the near field (defined as the region within one wavelength of an antenna, where the electric and magnetic fields are not related to each other solely by the characteristic impedance of free space [22], [23]) a field disturbance might be detected by the transmitter due to the mutual coupling with the receiver antenna. As a matter of fact, far field signal degradation with dis- tance goes down as the inverse of distance squared while near field signal degradation follows a much harder function going down as the inverse of the distance to the third power. So the antennas must be in close proximity. After a couple of decades, this concept has been exploited to the RF-ID (RadioFrequency ID tags) technology and today to a full featured, protocol based, two way communication system and protocol: the NFC as in Figure 1. Near field communication technology is directly related to, and derived from, RF-ID which is nothing but an out of the lab practical application of the historical “grid dip meter”: a labora- tory instrument used by radio amateurs and professional technicians since the beginning of wireless technology in the twenties of last century. This device was used to establish the exact frequency alignment of radio receivers’ and transmitters’ coils and actually “grid” stands for the grid of a triode vacuum tube oscillator which was employed at the time into the instru- ment. RF-ID systems have their main application in anti-theft devices used in shops, also known as EAS an acronym for electronic article surveillance systems. The operating principle is basically simple. A radiofrequency generator irradiates a RF field in a given area where an RF-ID tag may be located (typically at the shop’s exit). The RF-ID tag incorporates a resonant circuit which dissipates energy from the irradiated field induced on it. As a result of this effect the current into the irradiating coil of the generator decreases slightly although enough to de- tect the presence of the disturbing RF-ID coil. More practically the radiofrequency emitter is sending a frequency modulated signal around the RF-ID tag resonating frequency. If an RF- ID tag is in the area under surveillance then a “dip” in the voltage on the irradiating coil will be detected at the exact time the correct resonating frequency is emitted. If no dip is found, 3 no RF-ID tag is detected in the area. This kind of systems are also know as “1-bit transpond- ers” as they, passive receivers without any power supply, can only communicate back to the emitter their “presence” or not in the area [24].