Radio Frequency and Auto-Identification Labs
University of Texas at Arlington
RFID for walk pressure pattern monitoring and
implemenation for product-related injuries
The University of Texas at Arlington, Department of IMSE
Punugu Raghavendra kumar raghavendra.punugu@mavs.uta.edu
Joshua Bolton joshua.bolton@mavs.uta.edu
Eric C Jones ecjones@uta.edu
Abstract: RFID, which is Radio frequency identification, saw its first commercial application at
toll roads and animal tracking, since then there has been a huge expansion in its applications; it is
now being used to access buildings, inventory management, logistics application, supply chain
management and also in health care sector. RFID has shown its presence in health sector primarily
for patient tracking, pharmaceutical tracking, surgical tools tracking, tracking of X-Ray vest and
to prevent counterfeiting of medicines. Though a lot of research has been done in health care sector,
we still believe a lot more can be done. In this paper, we put forward an innovative application of
RFID in emergency medical services which involves embedding the RFID pressure sensor tags on
the floor of houses. Whenever a person walks , he exerts some amount of pressure of the floor and
the pressure is even more when a person is walks. The host computer observes the pattern of
pressure exerted by person walking or standing, however, when a person falls on the ground/floor
there is sudden change in the pressure exertion pattern. This sudden change in pressure pattern is
read by the reader in the room and it communicates to the host computer, which in turn
communicates to the nearest hospital and ambulance, so that the required care and treatment can
be administered to the patient with in the stipulated time of fall and RFID is one of the best
solutions currently available in this aspect.
Keywords: RFID, Health care, walk pressure pattern, pressure sensors.
Introduction: Falling is the leading cause of unintentional injury at the home among Americans
who are 65 and above. Older people sustain injuries such as stumbling on stairs, slipping in bath
tub, falling off ladders and step tools (Sharon O’Brien). IN 2003, the National safety council (NSC)
and the US consumer product safety commission (CPSC) teamed up to do a national education
campaign with an aim to reduce the preventable injuries among elders. According to a 2003 CPSC
study titled" Special Report: Emergency Room injuries, Adults 65 and older", consumers 65 and
above are increasingly at a risk of product-related injury that occur in and around homes, especially
caused by falling. CPSC estimates that the product-related injuries and death cost US over $100
billion every year. CPSC study found that people over the age of 75 are more vulnerable to productrelated injuries. From 1991- 2002 the number of people over the age of 75 suffering from product
related injury grew by 73%, while the age group grew by 27%. In 2006, the centers for disease
control reported that unintentional falls were the #1 reason for the people over the age of 45 visited
University of Texas at Arlington | Woolf Hall Rm. 411 | (817)-296-6884 | ecjones@uta.edu
Radio Frequency and Auto-Identification Labs
University of Texas at Arlington
emergency room. Among those 75 and older, about three quarters (77%) of the emergency room
visits associated with consumer product involved falls. Typical scenarios for falls include Falling
from stairs, Transitioning from standing to sitting (vice-versa), Falling from tripping over loose
carpets, wires and Falling off ladders. We often hear that health is of paramount importance and
there is a famous quotation about health said by Augusten Burroughs "when you have your health,
you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all. This is the
primary base for this research paper. Health care has been an area of fastest adoption of RFID
enabled technology, one of the first applications of RFID in health care was for traceability of
pharmaceuticals, which allowed for easy tracking of expiration dates so that the out dated drugs
were not administered to patients. It also allowed for traceability of materials to prevent
counterfeiting. It also allowed for tracking the temperature and moisture that the shipment was
exposed to before the shipment was delivered to the point of use. Since then RFID has been
implemented for hospital staff tracking, patient tracking, keeping tracking of hospital beds,
infusion pumps etc. As you proceed further you will see one of the innovative applications of RFID
in emergency medical services.
Background: RFID is Radio frequency identification. A RFID system comprises of a Tag,
Reader,Antenna and Host computer. The antenna of the reader emits the radio waves, whenever a
tag comes into the interrogation zone of the reader’s antenna; the antenna of the tag is energized
and starts to transmit the radio waves. Once the signals transmitted from tag’s antenna are received
by the reader’s antenna, they can be read with the help of the host computer. We can even program
the tag using the host computer depending upon the requirement.
Components of RFID system:
Tag: Tags are typically classified as Active Tags, Passive tags, Semi-passive tags, semi-active
tags. A Tag consists of an Integrated circuit or microchip which stores the data and electronic
product code. It has an antenna which helps to transmit and receive the signals from the reader’s
antenna, and the most important component is substrate which houses the antenna and the
integrated circuit/ chip, which often acts as a protecting layer
Reader: They are often classified as fixed reader and handheld reader, they are usually connected
to host computers, whenever a reader reads the tag the data can be seen in the host computer.
However, the handheld readers are those that have an in-built antenna and whenever you read a
tag the information can be seen on the screen of the handheld.
Antenna: This is the most important component of the RFID system, It determines the readability
of tags and the performance of the system is based on the range/ capacity of antenna. It helps to
transmit and receive the electromagnetic signals. They are mainly classified as Dipole antenna,
Loop antenna, Patch antenna. The main difference between these antennas is the electromagnetic
field coverage area. However, positioning of antenna is the most important aspect to have a good
performance from the whole system.
Host computer: It is a computer system which has software to read the inputs received from the
reader, It helps to program the tags, add/modify data as per requirements. Some tags have password
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Radio Frequency and Auto-Identification Labs
University of Texas at Arlington
to lock certain data so that it is not available for everyone. We can lock/unlock the tag with the
help of host computer.
Methodology: The methodology used in this paper is a simple application of pressure, force and
area of application of force. We know that as force and pressure are directly proportional to each
other and pressure is inversely proportional to area of force applied. When a person stands on the
ground, he exerts some amount of pressure on the ground, however the pressure is more when a
person walks, which is approximately twice as much compared to a person standing on the ground.
An average person of 1.8m height exerts 8psi pressure on the ground. When a person walks on the
floor embedded with the RFID pressure sensor tags, the pressure pattern is observed by the
computer. When a person puts his leg on the floor, he exerts some pressure and as he walks the
pressure exerted is very much alike during his entire walk, Figure 2 clearly depicts the various
walking pattern. However, when a person has a sudden fall, there is a sudden incresed acceleration
and incresed force and when the person falls on the ground the pressure is distributed at different
points on the floor and gradually fades off as the pressure pattern is completely distorted; the
person who is fallen on the ground occupies more area, and exerts less pressure on the floor, which
is a sudden deviation from the regular pattern. The host computer recognizes this pattern and
understands that the person who was earlier walking on the floor had a sudden fall and it
communicates with the nearest ambulance and hospital so that required care and necessary
arrangements can be made prior to the patients visit for emergency. The figure1 is a pictorial
representation of emergency management system.
Floor with RFID pressure
sensor Tags
Figure 1: Pictorial representation of Emergency management system
University of Texas at Arlington | Woolf Hall Rm. 411 | (817)-296-6884 | ecjones@uta.edu
Radio Frequency and Auto-Identification Labs
University of Texas at Arlington
The below figure 2 is a representation of the various walk patterns for a person.
Figure 2: Various walk positions6
Cost of implementation: Typically a tag with pressure sensor in it would cost around $89 to $185
and they can read at over a distance of 10 feet which is 3.048 meter. As they are Passive UHF tags,
they can be read a reader which costs around $600 and software for the functioning would cost
around $10000. For 9m2 area, the cost of implementation would be around $11000. However as
you increase the area of implementation, the cost would gradually decrease as the software cost is
a onetime investment and would run for many years without any maintenance required.
Result: One of the most important benefits of this implementation is that in many cases old people
have a sudden fall and they are unable to call for/seek assistance, this would help them to a great
extent by automatically informing the ambulance about the fall.
In instances where patients get down of their beds in hospitals, this would alert the staff about the
patient’s action of getting down and walking around hospitals.
There are many instances where a person’s fall in the house goes unnoticed for hours together,
implementation of RFID pressure sensor tags is the key solution for this.
Implementation of this would allow for faster admission of patients in the emergency ward and
required action can be taken without delay in medical care.
Conclusion: Implementation of RFID technology has been considered a boon in many domains
especially in the logistics, supply chain, warehousing and health care. Thou the RFID
implementation in the health care sector is mere 10%, it is expected to grow to a large extent by
the end of 2018. The results of proper implementation has already shown wonderful results in
many domains including the health sector.
University of Texas at Arlington | Woolf Hall Rm. 411 | (817)-296-6884 | ecjones@uta.edu
Radio Frequency and Auto-Identification Labs
University of Texas at Arlington
References:
1. Jones, Erick C., and Christopher A. Chung. RFID in Logistics: A Practical Introduction.
Boca Raton: CRC, 2008. Print.
2. Jones, Erick C., Billy Gray, Mewan Wijemanne, and Joshua Bolton. Tracked: A Guide to
ISCEA RFID Certification. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
3. A Project Of The U.s. Consumer, and Product Safety Commission. Special Report:
Emergency Room Injuries Adults 65 and Older (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
4. "Body Surface Area." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 28 July 2015.
5. "Human Body and Walking." Totalhuman. N.p., 20 Apr. 2014. Web. 30 July 2015.
6.
blog.corewalking.com
University of Texas at Arlington | Woolf Hall Rm. 411 | (817)-296-6884 | ecjones@uta.edu