IMPLEMENTATION BLUETOOTH LOW ENERGY ON THE MEDICAL SUPPORTING DEVICE

Abstract

Non-compliance from a patient is a serious problem, with a big consequence in case of health and costs. ECCT B.V. tries to develop some supporting devices expected to help patients to report their compliance. One of these supporting devices is a dispenser. These devices record data about time and other clinically relevant information. The electronic circuit also contains RFID technology, it is possible for Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled mobile telephone or a NFC reader to take the stored data. If we compare Bluetooth with NFC, Bluetooth has an advantage in range, Bluetooth has wider range than NFC. When the dispenser starts using BLE, there is no need for us to make the dispenser close to BLE enabled mobile phone or reader, we can separate it in some distance. The antenna design was done by using CST Microwave Studio 2009, provided by Fontys Hogescholen. In this project, author uses printed Inverted F Antenna as the antenna. Inverted F Antenna has some advantages and also fulfills the requirements for transmitting and receiving data. From the simulation we can find out there is 7 parameters affected on the antenna performance. Length is one of the parameters affected to the antenna resonant frequency. From the measurement result, Bluetooth Low Energy for “Firefly” can reach 10 meters range and can stand for 3 years using coin cell battery. In the future, the “Firefly” should be developed in thinner PCB, 0.5mm PCB thickness, because dispenser requires 0.5 mm PCB thickness for the perfect final product. Keywords: Near Field Communication, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Antenna