Safe identification and association of wireless sensors

A wireless sensor network method performed by a plurality of sensor nodes wirelessly monitoring a medical subject, the wireless sensor network method comprising:

• performing at each sensor node an authentication process including:
• (i) acquiring sensor data pertaining to a characteristic of the medical subject for a predetermined time responsive to a receiving wireless trigger message,
• (ii) storing an association code identifying the medical subject, the association code being computed from the acquired sensor data, and
• (iii) authenticating that a subsequently received wireless message containing an association code tag is associated with the medical subject by comparing the association code tag with the stored association code.

A wireless sensor network for wirelessly monitoring a medical subject, the wireless sensor network comprising:

• a plurality of sensor nodes, each sensor node including a wireless transceiver for sending and receiving wireless messages, a sensor monitoring a characteristic of the medical subject, and a processor programmed to at least perform an authentication method including:
• (i) acquiring sensor data pertaining to the characteristic of the medical subject via the sensor for a predetermined time responsive to receiving a wireless trigger message,
• (ii) computing an association code identifying the medical subject from the acquired sensor data,
• (iii) storing the computed association code at the sensor, and
• (iv) authenticating that a wireless message subsequently received by the sensor node is associated with the medical subject by comparing an association code tag contained in the received wireless message with the stored association code.