Wi-fi Technology Helps in Analyzing Patients’Breathing

Researchers from the University of Utah were successful in making a wi-fi device that could detect and analyze breathing patterns. This device will not only pave way for cheap and easy breath monitoring systems, but will also help doctors to get a faster and more efficient analysis of patients suffering from breathing problems like sleep apnea, asthma, sudden infant death syndrome and so on.

The first experiment was conducted on team leader Neal Patwari. He first timed his breathing to fifteen breaths per minute and tested his timing with the help of a carbon dioxide detector. He did the same by lying on a bed with almost twenty transmitters and receiver networks around him, operating at a frequency of 2.4GHz. To his surprise, the device calculated his breath with more accuracy and speed than any other analyzer. The device calculated within 0.4 to 0.2 breaths per minute based on only thirty seconds of data.
According to the developers, if the device is properly marketed, it will be cheaper than any other breath monitors used today. If so, the system could easily be integrated into home baby monitors soon. The device uses simple electronic components like a wireless transmitter and a receiver, like the ones we use for our home computer networks.
More modifications have to be brought to the system, like bringing n other radio frequencies to detect breathing, other than the conventional 2.4 GHz. The researchers are also trying to make the system detect the breathing of two people simultaneously, but not in unison.