Purpose – To implement the signal processing algorithms into a data evaluation unit
powered by mains electricity whilst the measuring head is powered by battery is a
commonly used method of power management in measurement technology. As the measuring
head no longer needs to deal with data evaluation, a processing unit with lower performance
parameters is sufficient, thus reducing overall energy consumption. Although adopting
this principle could save energy, it is still not used in today’s wireless pulse oximeters.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on theoretical calculations, the efficacy of applying
this principle when using wire-less pulse oximeters was demonstrated within this paper.
The power consumption of two theoretical pulse oximeter models was compared, side
by side. One of them evaluated the measured data in the measuring head. The other
one transmitted the pure digitalized signal, and did not have any data processing
task in the measuring head.
Findings – From the results of the study the following conclusion could be drawn:
an energy saving of 41% can be reached when using the wireless pulse oximeters with
omitting the data processing from the measuring head. The model parameters were verified
by examining the power consumption of an in-house made pulse oximeter.
Originality/Value – Although this principle has not been used for pulse oximeters
until this point, this paper proved the efficacy of the power reduction of the measuring
head by omit-ting the data processing. This method can be adopted by manufacturers
in the future.
