5G for Remote Care: Developing Sensor-Free Activity Monitoring

The Challenge

Traditional remote health monitoring systems — including our earlier NHS-deployed TIHM solution — require multiple intrusive sensors or wearable devices. This creates significant barriers: high deployment costs, privacy concerns, and low user acceptance among elderly populations who find wearables uncomfortable or stigmatizing. For remote and rural communities, these challenges are amplified by limited infrastructure and specialist support.

My Contribution

As a co-investigator and Work Package Lead from the University of Glasgow on the 5G New Thinking Project (funded by Scottish Government and DCMS), the UoG team led by Prof Muhammad Imran successfully developed a Portable Non-Invasive Radio Frequency (RF) Sensing System for assistive living — a fundamentally different approach that monitors activities without any on-body sensors.

The Role of 5G

Our system was specifically designed to operate in the 5G band at 3.75 GHz — making it a true 5G-native sensing solution. We secured Ofcom licensing approval to operate at this frequency, enabling deployment beyond the lab.

The choice of 5G was strategic for three reasons:

• 5G frequency for sensing — Mining CSI from 5G communication channels with 20 MHz bandwidth provides the resolution needed for accurate activity detection
• Split-second response times — 5G's low latency enables health applications requiring immediate decisions, particularly for detecting emergencies like falls
• Network virtualization — 5G's ability to dynamically set up and tear down services without human intervention is critical for portable, pop-up health sensing deployments

The Trial

We conducted a two-phase validation:

We performed comprehensive latency analysis to determine feasibility of integrating actuating systems for future applications — proving that 5G can reliably support health emergencies requiring immediate response.