Proceedings of the 6th European Embedded Design in Education and Research, 2014

LOW POWER NETWORK NODE FOR AMBIENT MONITORING

AND HEART RATE MEASUREMENT
Thomas Tetzlaff, Michael Boor, Ulf Witkowski, and Reza Zandian
Electronics and Circuit Technology, South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences
Lbecker Ring 2, 59494 Soest, Germany
phone: + (49) 2921 378-309, fax: +(49) 2921 378-409, email: witkowski@fh-swf.de
web: www.embedded-sys.fh-swf.de

Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi), Bluetooth BR/DER, Bluetooth Low

Energy and ZigBee. As it can be seen from Figure 1, in
comparison to other available technologies, BLE has the
lowest power consumption at low data rates.

ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the design of a low power sensor
node that supports wireless communication via Bluetooth
Low Energy (BLE) based on the TI System On Chip (SOC)
CC2541 device. The network node integrates sensors for
ambient monitoring, e.g. the recording of temperature, 3D
acceleration and ambient light measurement. Recorded
data can be sent via BLE to any remote device which
supports BLE, e.g. a smartphone. In this paper, a heart rate
sensor is implemented to demonstrate heart rate signal
processing and its applications in sports. The on-board
signal processing is performed on the MSP430 low-power
microcontroller. As an example application, the data is
wirelessly sent to a smartphone running Android OS for
visualization. This paper describes the software and
hardware development of the heart rate monitoring system
including the signal pre-processing. The developed PCB
has been integrated into a chest harness with integrated
textile electrodes for heart rate measurement.
1. INTRODUCTION

Figure 1 - Average power consumption of different

communication technologies compared to data rate [5]

The arrival of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) as a new

wireless communication technology brought to the market
new applications in areas such as health care, internet of
things, security, sports and fitness equipment, and home
entertainment [1]. BLE features such as very low power
consumption,
multi-connection
support,
automatic
transmission of the data in certain time intervals, faster
initialization time in addition to many others, make the
BLE technology a suitable option for the aforementioned
applications.

While data rates up to 10 KHz is enough for most WSN

applications, BLE support bit rates up to 1 Mb/s. In
addition to this, BLE radios use binary frequency
modulation to minimize transceiver complexity along with
frequency hopping to avoid interferences and fading.
A comparison of the characteristics of other transmission
media is provided in [6]. The use of ZigBee and ANT+
technology for forming WSNs, especially in sport and
fitness applications, is widely done by other researchers
[7][8]. However, BLE has the advantage of being widely
integrated into smartphone devices. Therefore users do not
need to purchase extra hardware and can also access many
free applications. The characteristics of BLE nodes are
evaluated in [9] and practical results are provided.

One major application of BLE is the forming of wireless

sensor networks (WSNs). WSNs are used in a wide variety
of applications [2]. Their performances are often evaluated
based on the sensor nodes communication bandwidth,
power supply, buffer size and processing capabilities [3]. A
lot of research has been carried out in order to improve
these parameters, with a focus on extending the battery
lifetime of a single node as well as the lifetime of the entire
network. BLE technology partly improves the mentioned
parameters of the WSNs.

The aim of this paper is to develop a wireless network node

based on Bluetooth Low Energy (TI CC2541) with a focus
on ambient monitoring and heart rate measurement. The
node is developed to monitor room temperature, ambient
light and device acceleration. Additionally, a heart rate can
be measured and monitored to support different kinds of
sports activities. This application requires a very compact
design and a sophisticated power management scheme.

Battery powered network nodes require energy efficient

wireless networking. As claimed in [4], BLE was
developed to achieve long battery life. Figure 1 shows the
average power consumption in relation to the data rates for

978-1-4799-6843-5/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

75

The SFH5712 [11] from OSRAM is used to measure the

ambient light. A wavelength of 400nm to 680nm represents
a good match in sensitivity to the human eye. The digital
output signal has a resolution of 1 count/lx with a
maximum value of 65535 counts. Once the sensor is
activated, the first measurement is taken after 1 ms, and
typically after 35 ms the output data is provided as an
average of 8 measurements, and then after 92 ms as an
average of 16 measurements.

Therefore low energy components are used which enable

the system to run on a coin cell battery for several months
to several years. A functional block diagram is shows in
Figure 2.

ADXL246 [12], an ultra-low power digital accelerometer

from Analogue Devices, measures the acceleration of the
network node. The ADXL346 is a 3-axis accelerometer
with a resolution of up to 13-bit. It can measure
accelerations up to 16 g. The digital output data is
formatted as 16-bit twos complement values and can be
accessed through the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) or
I2C bus interfaces. The accelerometer measures the static
acceleration of gravity in tilt-sensing applications, as well
as dynamic acceleration resulting from motion or shock. A
high resolution of 4 mg/LSB allows for inclination change
measurements of less than 1.0.

Figure 2 - Sensor node functional block diagram

This paper is organized as follows: The second chapter
describes the hardware design, including the components,
PCB details and design considerations. The third chapter
describes and provides details regarding the software
structure. Chapter 4 discusses the device integration and
setup, and the final chapter of this paper presents test results
and drawn conclusions.

The chest harness allows for the measuring of the

electrochemical reaction generated via the pumping of the
heart inside the human body. An actual voltage potential of
approximately 1mV arises between various body points and
has to be pre-processed to be recorded by a microcontroller.
The two electrodes of the chest harness are connected to an
instrumental amplifier, the Texas Instruments INA333,
which amplifies the differential signal by a factor of 5. The
instrumental amplifier is followed by an operational
amplifier, the OPA333, which amplifies the output signal of
the INA333 by approximately a factor of 200. Therefore the
combined amplifiers result in an amplification factor of
1000 and the amplitude of the outputted heart rate being
1V. To reduce the noise caused by the 50Hz line frequency,
the operational amplifier is also used as a preliminary lowpass filter with a cutoff frequency of 33Hz.

2. SENSOR HARDWARE DESIGN

Several different sensors have been selected to meet the
requirements of the mobile wireless network node to be
used in sports. The sensors must be able to communicate
with the CC2541 SOC. Therefore, all implemented sensors
should provide a communication interface which is
supported by the microcontroller. To reduce the
programming and circuit design effort, the I2C bus was
deemed suitable for this purpose. The I2C bus allows serial
bidirectional communication with up to 112 devices while
using only two communication lines. In the interest of low
power consumption, the current demands of components
are a major selection criterion. To ensure a proper heart rate
measurement, the sensor node must be attached to a chest
harness. For simplification, a chest harness with a case for
the PCB was purchased; therefore the maximum size of the
PCB is defined by the case. The heart rate measurement
system should not interfere with ones sporting activities.
Thus the size and the weight of the node should be reduced
as much as possible with regards to this application. This
culminated in the selection of the following efficient but
small and lightweight sensors:

2.2. Processing the heart rate signal on a MSP430

microcontroller
The pre-processing described in section 2.1 allows for the
determining of a heart rate signal (ECG). Due to the fact
that the ECG waveform is used to detect heart beats, it is
possible to analyse the ECG signal to determine a heart
rate. For this procedure, the pre-processed signal has to be
continually converted by an ADC. The CC2541 SOC
includes a peripheral to handle this task, but its current
consumption is approximately 12 mA while active. In order
to achieve a longer battery life, a coprocessor, the TI
MSP430FR5738 with an active current of 650A, is used to
analyze the ECG and determine the heart rate. The MSP430
samples the signal at 1MHz and filters it again with a 10th
order FIR filter with a cut-off frequency of 20 Hz. The
heart beats are detected via a threshold generated by taking
a floating average. The current heart rate, determined by
averaging the time between 3 detected heart beats, can be
read over the I2C bus.

2.1. Implemented sensors

The temperature is measured by a Texas Instruments
TMP102. The TMP102 [10] is an I2C supporting
temperature sensor with a resolution of 12 Bits and a step
size of 0.0625 C. Due to the specified operation range of
-40 C to +125 C, the sensor is ideal for environmental
applications. This sensor has a maximum current
consumption of 10 A in active mode, 1 A in shutdown
mode and is available in a 1.7 mm x 1.7 mm sized package.

76

current while the CC2541 stays in low-power mode. Figure

3 shows the connections between the voltage regulators and
devices.

2.3. Bluetooth Chip CC2541

The CC2541 SOC is implemented in order to provide
wireless transmission to external devices. The Texas
Instruments CC2541 is a power-optimized true System-OnChip (SOC) solution with Bluetooth Low Energy support. It
enables the development of robust wireless network nodes
at low cost. The CC2541 combines an industry standard
8051 MCU with an excellent RF transceiver. Having
various operating modes, the CC2541 is well suited for
devices requiring ultra-low power consumption. The short
switching times between operating modes reduces overall
power consumption. The SOCs main task is the wireless
transmission of acquired ambient data. To transmit this
data, the SOC has to receive the data from the sensors in
order to transmit it. This should occur in such a way that
minimizes the active runtime. A simple human user
interface is created via the connecting of two buttons, two
LEDs and a buzzer to the CC2541.

The devices with interrupts and auto sleep modes are also
connected in such a way that they can wake up each other.
In our case of measuring heart rate, all the components
remain in sleep mode until the accelerometer recognises
movement. The accelerometer activates the MSP430 which
then activates the heart rate preamplifiers. Afterwards, the
MSP430starts to detect the heart beats. When heart beats
are detected the CC2541 is activated and will try to connect
to a device such as a smartphone. If no heartbeat is
detected, the sensors switch to their power saving modes.
2.5. Layout
Size of the PCB is fixed by the selected case and the
connectors of the heart rate sensors. The dimensions of the
PCB, the connectors for heart rate measurement and holes
to mount the PCB in the case are shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 - Dimensions of the PCB with battery, heart rate

connectors and mounting holes
For BLE communication, an antenna is required. For the
board a PCB antenna is used. It is compromise between
small size and the required antenna gain to achieve good
communication range. The case has a thinner region (lower
left area of the PCB) where the antenna should be placed.
The bottom layer of the PCB cannot be used for device
placement due to limited space and connection to the
battery compartment. Therefore all sensors, controllers and
voltage regulators have to be placed on the top layer. Using
a six layer PCB allows for two supply layers and eases the
routing process. Figure 5 shows the placement of the
devices as well as the routing on the top layer.

Figure 3 - Power concept for processing unit and sensors

2.4. Power concept
The sensors implemented require different supply voltages,
and thus voltage regulators are used to provide these needed
voltages to the sensors. The heart rate preamplifier needs
two voltage levels for its amplification purpose. The TI
TPS71825-12 is a suitable chip which supports two voltage
levels. This voltage regulator can be activated by the
MSP430 which is needed to acquire the measured and preprocessed ECG signal. The MSP430, the temperature
sensor, the ambient-light sensor as well as the
accelerometer support low power modes. There is no need
to switch them off separately. The sensors are supplied by a
single voltage regulator. The regulator TI TPS62230 has an
ultra-low quiescent current, and can be disabled via a solder
jumper. The CC2541 supports voltage regulator with
bypass mode, so that the voltage regulator can be turned off
and on by the CC2541 itself in order to minimise quiescent

3. SOFTWARE
The software plays a major role in the power concept and
therefore also contributes to the maximum battery life time.
The developed hardware design allows for versatile use of
the network node through adaptions to the software.

77

PCB in the case on the chest harness of the POLAR

company. A sample measurement of an ECG signal with
the MSP 430 is shown in Figure 8. Two heart beats can be
identified in the graph.
4.2. Communication with smartphone
The developed PCB holds two LEDs for signalling which
can be used to show detected heart beats. To display all the
sensor values, the measured signals have to be transmitted
to an external device which includes a display. While using
the device during sports as a heart rate monitor, a
smartphone operating with Android OS is used to connect
to the network node to read and display the sensor values.
All the sensor values are transmitted in one connection
event of BLE. In order to achieve this behaviour, a special
protocol is used which is not based on the standardised
BLE protocols. Thus the sensor node can also be used with
free to use sport tracking apps supporting BLE like
endomondo, runtastic or nike+ running.

Figure 5 Layout of the sensor node with integrated chip

antenna for Bluetooth communication via CC2541
3.1. Software of the Sensor Node
The main feature of the CC2541 is wireless communication
via BLE. The CC2541 device stays in one of three different
states; power-down, connectable and connected. If there is
no need to transfer data, for example while configured as a
heart rate monitor with no heart beats being detected, then
the controller stays inactive to reduce current consumption.
In the case that there is available data to transmit
(movement, heart rate, temp change), the CC2541 powers
on and connects to a device supporting BLE. The network
node stays active and collects data, as long as a device is
connected via BLE to the CC2541. Followed by a loss of
connection, the CC2541 configures the sensors to generate
application specified wakeup interrupt and all components
used in the last task enter power saving mode again

Figure 7 - Integrated PCB in the chest harness for heart

rate measurement

4. DEVICE SETUP AND TEST

After manufacturing and assembling the PCB, all board
components are tested and the required software is
programmed into the devices. The assembled board is
shown in Figure 6. A Euro coin is placed in the figure to
indicate dimensions.

1.4
1.2

voltage [V]

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

0.5

1.5

time [s]

Figure 8 - Two detected hard beats: sensor signal

processing and detection is based on the MSP430
Figure 6 - Assembled PCB compared to a Euro coin (top
and bottom view)

4.3. Results
Figure 9 shows the developed test app running on an
Android device while the network node is attached to the
chest harness. The test person wearing the chest harness
was standing upright still and had a body skin temperature
of approximately 35C. The values measured by the

4.1. Integration into chest harness for sport application

For heart rate measuring purposes, the PCB has to be
connected to a chest harness. Figure 7 shows the mounted

78

node application in sports can help to assess the fitness of a

person and to optimize the training.

network node are shown in Figure 9. The acceleration is 1 g

in x-axis direction which is the acceleration due to gravity
while the person stands still. The network node is heated up
to 26 C due to the body temperature of the test person and
the measured heart rate is 75 min-1.

REFERENCES
[1] Naresh Gupta, Inside Bluetooth Low Energy, London,
Artech House publication, pp. 7-14, 2013.
[2] I.F. Akyildiz, W. Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam and E.
Cayirci, Wireless Sensor Network: A Survey, Computer
Networks, vol. 38, pp. 393-422, March 2002.
[3] Annette Bhm, State of the Art on Energy-Efficient and
Latency-Constrained Networking Protocols for Wireless
Sensor Networks, Hoegskolan Halmstad, June 2007.
[4] Sandeep Kamath and Joakim Lindh. Measuring
Bluetooth Low Energy Power Consumption. Texas
Instruments,
http://www.ti.com/lit/an/swra347a/
swra347a.pdf, 2012. Visited at 18.07.2012.
[5] Mac Tochigi. Achieving low power wireless
connectivity for battery powered healthcare sensors.
Electronics
Components
World,
http://www.
electronicscomponentsworld.com/articleView~idArticle~72
071_3833218192182012.html, Visited at 28.09.2012.
[6] Pedro Silva Giro, George Alexandru Enache,
Wireless Sensor Networks: State of The Art and Future
Trends, in Proc. 2nd Metrologica E Inovacao, Madeira
2007.
[7] Paolo Barontib, Prashant Pillaia, Vince W.C. Chooka,
Stefano Chessab, Alberto Gottab and Y. Fun Hua,
Wireless sensor networks: A survey on the state of the art
and the 802.15.4 and ZigBee standards, Computer
Communications, vol 30, 2007.
[8] Zulkifli, N. S A, Harun, F.K.C., Azahar, N. S., "XBee
wireless sensor networks for Heart Rate Monitoring in sport
training," Biomedical Engineering (ICoBE), 2012
International Conference on , vol., no., pp.441,444, 27-28
Feb. 2012.
[9] Gomez, C.; Oller, J.; Paradells, J., Overview and
Evaluation of Bluetooth Low Energy: An Emerging LowPower Wireless Technology. Sensors, vol. 12, 1173411753, August 2012.
[10] Inc. Texas Instruments. Low Power Digital
Temperature
Sensor.
Texas
Instruments,
Inc.,
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tmp102.pdf, 2012. Visited
at 28.08.2012.
[11] OSRAM. High Accuracy Ambient Light Sensor with
I2C Bus Interface.OSRAM Opto Semiconductors GmbH,
http://catalog.osram-os.com/catalogue/catalogue.do;jsession
id=4C9E922FDE180688EC164D9B9DF24BC5?act=downl
oadFile&favOid=0200000000028f60000300b6,
2010.
Visited at 28.08.2012.
[12] Analog Devices. Ultralow Power Digital
Accelerometer. Analog Devices,Inc.,http://www.analog.co
m/static/imported-files/data_sheets/ADXL346.pdf, 2010.
Visited at 31.08.2012.

Current measurements show that the network node has a

total current consumption of 11mA while all devices are
active. This results in a battery life time of 20 hours when
operating with a CR2032 coin cell with 230mAh without
using the implemented low power concept. All sensors and
the co-processor deactivated, the active CC2541 has a
minimum current consumption of 1.2 A which results in a
theoretical battery life time of about 20 years. Thus, the
enabled power concept results in a battery life time of
weeks to months while CC2541 stays connected with a
BLE device.

Figure 9 - Screenshot of smartphone GUI (Android OS)

displaying the sensor values and supporting inputs
5. CONCLUSIONS
The objective of this work was to develop a low power
wireless network node with application in sports. This node
is able to monitor temperature, ambient light, device
acceleration, and heart rate. Due to the fact that the network
node is powered by a coin cell, low power sensors for
ambient data acquisition have been used. The network node
is able to communicate based on the BLE wireless low
power technology. This is well suited for low power
wireless networking at low data rates. Supported
connection intervals range from 7.5 ms to 42 s. In
connection with sleep modes battery life times of several
months can be achieved. The developed network node is
able to communicate with any device supporting BLE, e.g.
most smartphones and tablets. In conclusion, a network
node has been successfully developed which is energy
efficient and can operate using a coin type battery cell. The

79