Internal Positioning System for Cardiotocograph (CTG) Transducers at Mackay Base Hospital

Abstract

Cardiotocographs (CTG) are essential pieces of medical equipment that assist in the birth suite and during maternity surveillance. These devices require the use of transducers that communicate wirelessly to the CTG and enable an expectant mother to have water births. When the CTG transducers are lost, or misplaced, there is no system that can locate the expensive accessories. Thus, necessitates the need to develop an Internal Positioning System at Mackay Base Hospital. The device that was proposed to be used in the system is an Xbee S68© Wi-Fi RF module designed by DIGI International. This device is capable of communicating to Access Points for the purposes of location tracking only. It was successfully demonstrated on a small home network that the Xbee device was able to transmit/ receive data from characteristic packet signatures which was captured using Wireshark©. Furthermore, to ensure the device can be aligned with IP67 rating an enclosure was designed to enable the device to be immersed in water. Overall it was ascertained that the device is able to connect on a small network, which can be easily applied on a larger WLAN, in addition to all the project outcomes of an Engineering style report was demonstrated.