Development of an ultrasound-based indoor localization system for hospital use

Abstract

Nowadays, healthcare professionals face many challenges providing care while managing expenses. The capability to track the location of patients and medical equipment in real time and over time gives the hospital the ability to manage assets effectively, tackling safety problems and increasing efficiency, thus reducing costs while improving patient outcomes. In this thesis I established the fundamentals for a reliable, flexible but also low-cost indoor localization system which is able to provide both low and high accuracy in real time. To this end, different wireless indoor localization principles were compared and an ultrasound based approach was selected. Then, the necessary hardware and software components for the proposed system were developed and several simulations were performed to study the optimum number of transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) modules in the room. These simulations also provide an insight of the average distance measurement error over the room and an entire real hospital floor to prove the system’s feasibility. Next, I started the first steps towards a full-scale implementation benchmarking a 1TX-1RX prototype in a lab-environment and finally, I provided a clear roadmap as to how to proceed towards a finished indoor localization system for hospital use.