A
system for long-term remote medical monitoring is especially suitable for the medical supervision of astronauts onboard a space
station. The
system includes at least one autonomous sensor unit (SU) with a sensor (1) and transmit / receive electrodes (2) connected to a microchip (3) and mounted on a carrier (4) in the form of an
adhesive bandage that can easily be applied to the
skin of the subject astronaut (11). The
system further includes a body
transceiver (10) that is worn on the body of the subject and acts as a centralized transmitting and receiving unit, and a portable
data logger (12). Medical data such as the
pulse rate and the like, as well as
environmental data such as the ambient surrounding
air temperature, are sensed by respective allocated sensor units (SU) and transmitted from the sensor units as electrical signals via the
skin and other body tissues of the subject (11) to the body
transceiver (10). From the body
transceiver (10), the data signals are further transmitted, for example by a radio or
infrared transmission, to the
data logger (12), where the data can be recorded, displayed, processed, or further transmitted via a
satellite (14) to a
base station (13) or a ground-based facility such as a hospital (15).
Polling signals are also transmitted from the body transceiver (10) to the sensor units (SU) in a
wireless manner through the
skin and other body tissues of the subject.