Body area network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (August 2010)

Computer network types by geographical scope

Near field (NFC) Body (BAN) Personal (PAN) Near-me (NAN) Local (LAN)

Home (HAN) Storage (SAN)

Campus (CAN) Backbone Metropolitan (MAN) Wide (WAN) Internet Interplanetary Internet
This box:

view

talk

edit

Body area network (BAN), wireless body area network (WBAN) or body sensor network (BSN) are terms used to describe the application of wearable computing devices.
[1][2][3]

This will enable wireless communication between

[4][5]

several miniaturized body sensor units (BSU) and a single body central unit (BCU) worn at the human body.

The

development of WBAN technology started around 1995 by considering wireless personal area network (WPAN) technologies for communications on, near and around the human body. Later around 2001, this application of WPAN

has been named as body area network (BAN) to represent the communications on, in and near the body only. WBAN system can use WPAN wireless technologies as gateways to reach longer ranges. Contents
[hide]

[6][7]

1 Concept 2 Applications 3 Components 4 Challenges 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit]Concept
The rapid growth in physiological sensors, low power integrated circuits and wireless communication has enabled a new generation of wireless sensor networks. These wireless sensor networks are used to monitor traffic, crops, infrastructure and health. The body area network field is an interdisciplinary area which could allow inexpensive and continuous health monitoring with real-time updates of medical records via Internet. A number of intelligent physiological sensors can be integrated into a wearable wireless body area network, which can be used for computer assisted rehabilitation or early detection of medical conditions. This area relies on the feasibility of implanting very small bio-sensors inside the human body that are comfortable and that don't impair normal activities. The implanted sensors in the human body will collect various physiological changes in order to monitor the patient's health status no matter their location. The information will be transmitted wirelessly to an external processing unit. This device will instantly transmit all information in real time to the doctors throughout the world. If an emergency is detected, the physicians will immediately inform the patient through the computer system by sending appropriate messages or alarms. Currently the level of information provided and energy resources capable of powering the sensors are limiting. While the technology is still in its primitive stage it is being widely researched and once adopted, is expected to be a breakthrough invention in healthcare, leading to concepts like telemedicine and mHealth becoming real.

[edit]Applications
Initial applications of BANs are expected to appear primarily in the healthcare domain, especially for continuous monitoring and logging vital parameters of patients suffering from chronic diseasessuch as diabetes, asthma and heart attacks.

A BAN network in place on a patient can alert the hospital, even before they have a heart attack, through measuring changes in their vital signs.

A BAN network on a diabetic patient could auto inject insulin though a pump, as soon as their insulin level declines.

Other applications of this technology include sports, military, or security. Extending the technology to new areas could also assist communication by seamless exchanges of information between individuals, or between individual and machines.

[edit]Components
A typical BAN or BSN requires vital sign monitoring sensors, motion detectors (through accelerometers) to help identify the location of the monitored individual and some form of communication, to transmit vital sign and motion readings to medical practitioners or care givers. A typical body area network kit will consist of sensors, a Processor, a transceiver and a battery. Physiological sensors, such as ECG and SpO2 sensors, have been developed. Other sensors such as a blood pressure sensor, EEG sensor and a PDA for BSN interface are under development.
[8]

[edit]Challenges
Problems with the use of this technology could include:

Interoperability: WBAN systems would have to ensure seamless data transfer across standards such as Bluetooth, ZigBee etc. to promote information exchange, plug and play device interaction. Further, the systems would have to be scalable, ensure efficient migration across networks and offer uninterrupted connectivity.

System devices: The sensors used in WBAN would have to be low on complexity, small in form factor, light in weight, power efficient, easy to use and reconfigurable. Further, the storage devices need to facilitate remote storage and viewing of patient data as well as access to external processing and analysis tools via the Internet.

System and device-level security: Considerable effort would be required to make BAN transmission secure and accurate. It would have to be made sure that the patient secure data is only derived from each patient's dedicated BAN system and is not mixed up with other patient's data. Further, the data generated from WBAN should have secure and limited access.

Invasion of privacy: People might consider the WBAN technology as a potential threat to freedom, if the applications go beyond "secure" medical usage. Social acceptance would be key to this technology finding a wider application.

Sensor validation: Pervasive sensing devices are subject to inherent communication and hardware constraints including unreliable wired/wireless network links, interference and limited power reserves. This may result in erroneous datasets being transmitted back to the end user. It is of the utmost importance especially within a healthcare domain that all sensor readings are validated. This helps to reduce false alarm generation and to identify possible weaknesses within the hardware and software design.
[9]

Data consistency: Data residing on multiple mobile devices and wireless patient notes need to be collected and analysed in a seamless fashion. Within body area networks, vital patient datasets may be fragmented over a number of nodes and across a number of networked PCs or Laptops. If a medical practitioners mobile device does not contain all known information then the quality of patient care may degrade.
[10]

Interference: The wireless link used for body sensors should reduce the interference and increase the coexistence of sensor node devices with other network devices available in the environment. This is especially important for large scale implementation of WBAN systems.
[11][12]

Besides hardware-centric challenges, the following human-centric challenges should be addressed for practical BAN development. These include
[13]

Cost: Today's consumers expect low cost health monitoring solutions which provide high functionality. WBAN implementations will need to be cost optimized to be appealing alternatives to health conscious consumers.

Constant Monitoring: Users may require different levels of monitoring, for example those at risk of cardiac ischemia may want their WBANs to function constantly, while others at risk of falls may only need WBANs to monitor them while they are walking or moving. The level of monitoring influences the amount of energy required and the life cycle of the BAN before the energy source is depleted.

Constrained Deployment: The WBAN needs to be wearable, lightweight and non intrusive. It should not alter or encumber the user's daily activities. The technology

should ultimately be transparent to the user i.e., it should perform its monitoring tasks without the user realising it.

Consistent Performance: The performance of the WBAN should be consistent. Sensor measurements should be accurate and calibrated, even when the WBAN is switched off and switched on again. The wireless links should be robust and work under various user environments.

[edit]See

also

Energy harvesting EnOcean

[edit]References

1. 2.

^ Developing wireless body area networks standard ^ Sana Ullah, Henry Higgins, Bart Braem, Benoit Latre, Chris Blondia, Ingrid Moerman, Shahnaz Saleem, Ziaur Rahman and Kyung Sup Kwak, A Comprehensive Survey of Wireless Body Area Networks: On PHY, MAC, and Network Layers Solutions, Journal of Medical Systems (Springer), 2010. DOI: 10.1007/s10916-010-9571-3.

3.

^ Chen, Min; Gonzalez, Sergio and Vasilakos, Athanasios and Cao, Huasong and Leung, Victor (2010). "Body Area Networks: A Survey". Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET) (Springer Netherlands) 16 (2): 123.doi:10.1007/s11036010-0260-8. ISSN 1383-469X.

4.

^ Schmidt R, Norgall T, Mrsdorf J, Bernhard J, von der Grn T. (2002). "Body Area Network BAN--a key infrastructure element for patient-centered medical applications". Biomed Tech 47 (1): 365 8.doi:10.1515/bmte.2002.47.s1a.365. PMID 12451866.

5.

^ O'Donovan, T., O'Donoghue, J., Sreenan, C., O'Reilly, P., Sammon, D. and O'Connor, K.: A Context Aware Wireless Body Area Network (BAN), In proceedings of the Pervasive Health Conference 2009.

6.

^ M. R. Yuce (2010). "Implementation of wireless body area networks for healthcare systems". Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 162: 116 129. doi:10.1016/j.sna.2010.06.004.

7. 8.

^ http://doc.utwente.nl/66761/1/WG1_Val_Jones_Richard_Bults.pdf ^ http://vip.doc.ic.ac.uk/bsn/m621.html

9.

^ O?Donoghue, J. Herbert, J. and Fensli, R.: Sensor Validation within a Pervasive Medical Environment, In Proceedings of IEEE Sensors, South Korea, ISBN 14244-0376-6, 2006.

10. ^ O?Donoghue, J., Herbert, J. and Kennedy, R.: Data Consistency within a Pervasive Medical Environment, In Proceedings of IEEE Sensors, South Korea, ISBN 1-4244-0376-6, 2006. 11. ^ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6THG-5093N363&_user=915767&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=s earch&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000047922&_ver sion=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=915767&md5=bfcb3fbcaf1e3295f8a625a3cf5b75f c&searchtype=a 12. ^ Garcia P., "A Methodology for the Deployment of Sensor Networks", IEEE Transactions On Knowledge And Data Engineering, vol. 11, no. 4, December 2011. 13. ^ Lai, D. , Begg, R.K. and Palaniswami, M. eds, Healthcare Sensor Networks: Challenges towards practical implementation, ISBN 9781439821817, 2011

[edit]External

links

Near-field Intra body communication Body Area NEtworks and Technologies Ullah, Sana and Higgins, Henry and Braem, Bart and Latre, Benoit and Blondia, Chris and Moerman, Ingrid and Saleem, Shahnaz and Rahman, Ziaur and Kwak, Kyung (2010). "A Comprehensive Survey of Wireless Body Area Networks: On PHY, MAC, and Network Layers Solutions". Journal of Medical Systems (Springer Netherlands): 130. doi:10.1007/s10916-010-9571-3. ISSN 01485598. PMID 20721685

Energy Harvesting for Self Powered Wearable Health Monitoring System Video of a short talk by Cardiologist Eric Topol about Wireless medicine "Mobile Health: Concepts, Initiatives and Applications", First Book (in Portuguese) about using Wireless Technology to assist Healthcare

View page ratings

Rate this page

What's this? Trustworthy

Objective Complete Well-written I am highly knowledgeable about this topic (optional) Submit ratings Categories:

Log in / create account

Bioengineering Wireless networking Health sciences Upcoming products

Article Talk Read Edit View history

Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia

Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia

Toolbox Print/export Languages

Deutsch Espaol Italiano

This page was last modified on 6 March 2012 at 11:49.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Contact us Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Mobile view