A tool for designing high-confidence implantable biosensor networks for medical monitoring

• Authors: Sandeep K. S. Gupta
• Venue: ACM SIGBED Review - Special Issue on the 2nd Joint Workshop on High Confidence Medical Devices, Software, and Systems (HCMDSS) and Medical Device Plug-and-Play (MD PnP) Interoperability
• Year: 2009

In this work we describe a software tool for designing implantable biosensor network (BSN) applications. BSNs are next generation medical monitoring systems, which provide continuous monitoring and actuation capabilities to medical personnel. They usually form a wireless network on a subject's body and can be controlled remotely. Before deploying any mission critical systems, it is important to be able to evaluate their performnce in the appropriate settings, and fine tune the design choices made. This is especially important for BSNs which are cyber-physical in nature --- they interact and influence their environment of deployment. Toward this goal we present the development of a software tool which can be used by developers and medical personnel to emulate an actual deployment of biosensor applications and evaluate its performance in different scenarios. We use Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) in order to implement our tool as it provides an easy to use interface for specifying complex systems, and their environments. In this paper we discuss various aspects of developing such a tool including prinicipal characteristics of BSNs that need to be considered by it along with its functional architecture. We also provide an example scenario of how the tool can be used to evlauate a specific biosensor application.