Power saving issues in a low cost eHealth sensor controller

eHealth platforms offer an efficient way of remotely monitoring the condition of a patient. They relay on mobile modules that should operate with battery that do not often require recharging. Thus, low cost operation should be guaranteed at least at the level of the mobile Sensor Controller. In this paper, the power consumption of a Sensor Controller in a low cost e-health platform that has been recently presented by the authors is studied. Significant power saving can be achieved by adopting appropriate architectural solutions. These solutions are tested on a general low cost eHealth platform but they can also be employed in customized systems that will be developed in the future. The power saving issues handled in this paper include sleep mode support, deactivation of idle peripherals, selection of low power communication interface, low sampling frequency, etc.