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Bluetooth LE continuous glucose monitoring system provides blood sugar level data for up to fifteen days
MeiQi’s RGMS-III employs Nordic’s nRF52840 and nRF52810 SoCs to provide wireless connectivity between wearable and smart device
Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Huzhou, China-based medical equipment manufacturer MeiQi has selected Nordic’s nRF52840 Bluetooth® 5.2/Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) advanced multiprotocol System-on-Chip (SoC) and nRF52810 SoC to provide the core processing power and wireless connectivity for its ‘RGMS-III’ continuous glucose monitoring system.
RGMS-III allows users living with diabetes to continuously test and record their blood sugar levels for up to fifteen days before replacement. The solution consists of a sterilized disposable sensor which is attached to the user’s upper arm or abdomen using an applicator; a transmitter connected to the sensor; a handheld smart device that displays blood glucose data; as well as an iOS and Android smartphone app.
Ultra-low power extends battery life
The transmitter relays the data to the smart device and/or the app on the user’s Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphone using Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity provided by the nRF52810 SoC. The transmitter is powered by a CR2016 coin cell battery that provides the wearable with sufficient power to operate continuously for fifteen days, thanks in part to the ultra low power consumption of the Nordic SoC. The nRF52810 has been engineered to minimize power consumption with features such as the 2.4GHz radio’s 4.6mA peak RX/TX currents and a fully-automatic power management system that reduces power consumption by up to 80 percent compared with Nordic’s nRF51 Series SoCs.
The technical support and fast response received from Nordic was a major drawcard
Zhang Feng, MeiQi
The nRF52840 SoC integrated in the smart device provides both the wireless connectivity to the transmitter, and the processing power for the smart device’s functionality. The nRF52840 SoC’s 64MHz, 32-bit Arm® Cortex® M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU) provides ample computational power to run both the complex sensor algorithms that convert the sensor data from the transmitter into the blood glucose value displayed on the smart device, as well as its heart rate monitoring and step counter features. The watch can also provide alerts when blood glucose levels are either too high or low.
Glucose levels from smartphone app
From the accompanying smartphone app—'CGM User’ (for iOS) and ‘MQ CGM’ (for Android)—the user can also monitor current blood glucose levels, set alarms, as well as view a full report of glucose level fluctuation over the relevant period. This data can help users view changes and analyze potential causes of any fluctuation.
Nordic’s nRF52840 SoC combines the Arm Cortex M4 processor with a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio (supporting Bluetooth 5.2, ANT™, Thread, Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.4, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software) with 1MB Flash memory and 256kB RAM. A new radio architecture with on-chip PA provides features -95dBm RX sensitivity (at 1Mbps Bluetooth LE), a maximum output power of 8dBm, and a total link budget of 103dBm. The chip supports all the features of Bluetooth 5 (including 4x the range or 2x the raw data bandwidth (2Mbps)) compared with Bluetooth 4.2. Designed to address the inherent security challenges that are faced in IoT, the nRF52840 SoC incorporates the Arm CryptoCell™-310 cryptographic accelerator, offering best-in-class security. The SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S140 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5-certified software protocol stack for building long range and high data Bluetooth LE applications.
The nRF52810 multiprotocol SoC combines a 64MHz, 32-bit Arm Cortex M4 processor, with a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio (supporting Bluetooth 5.2, ANT™, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software) featuring reduced radio energy consumption, with 192kB Flash memory and 24kB RAM. The nRF52810 SoC is supplied with the latest version of Nordic’s S112 SoftDevice, Bluetooth 5-compliant RF protocol software.
“Performance and low power consumption were two of our key hardware requirements for the solution and both the nRF52810 and nRF52840 met these requirements,” says Zhang Feng, President and CEO MeiQi. “The technical support and fast response received from Nordic was also a major drawcard.”
