ABSTRACT
CONTENTS 20.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560 20.2 Survey of Proposals Using RFID and Sensor Networks for
Intelligent Hospitals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561 20.2.1 Analysis of Hospital-Personnel Flow for Supply and Demand
Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561 20.2.2 Tracking Vital and Highly Sensitive Medical/Life Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562 20.2.3 Building a Pervasive-Sensing Hospital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
20.3 Survey of Proposals Using RFID and Sensor Networks for Health Care Outside of Hospitals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564 20.3.1 Mobile Telemedicine Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564 20.3.2 A Wireless Health-Monitoring System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565 20.3.3 A Prototype for In-Home Elder Health Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
20.4 A Development Platform for Sensor Networks and RFID for Health Care . . . . . . 567 20.4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 20.4.2 Programming Abstractions and Related Middleware Projects . . . . . . . . . . . 568
20.4.2.1 Programming Abstractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568 20.4.2.2 Middleware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569 20.4.2.3 JADE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
20.4.3 The Application Development Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570 20.4.3.1 Preliminaries and Data Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570 20.4.3.2 Application Development Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575 20.4.3.3 Energy Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576
20.4.4 Prototype Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577 20.4.4.1 Core Module: Registration and Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577 20.4.4.2 Application Development GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578 20.4.4.3 An Experimental Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579 20.4.4.4 An Example Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
20.4.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579 20.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
Radio frequency identification (RFID) and sensor networks are two wireless technologies that will soon become an integral part of everyday life. Each of them has many potential applications in ubiquitous and pervasive computing.Onone hand,RFIDhas experienced a very fast growth in the industry, in both technology and applications. On the other hand, sensor network technology has attracted tremendous attention in the research community. This chapter attempts to bridge the gap between industry and academia focuses. We present a study of using RFID and sensor networks in the application of health care. This is an exceedingly important area as the growth of aging population is becoming a universal, worldwide phenomenon and an impeding social issue.
