Body area network is a network technology that is growing rapidly in the world of computers. It plays a very important role especially in the field of health. It aids in monitoring crucial signs of patients as well as monitoring the history of the patient in the routine activities of life to offer the patients with proper and accurate treatment and medication. The main aim of the technology is reduction in the hospital loads and offer adequate facility of healthcare remotely through the use of MICS (medical implant communication system) as well as WMTS (wireless medical telemetry system). Monitoring patients as carried out using WBAN (wireless body area network) because it is not practical to observe the patients using sensors or devices that are connected through a wire in the patient’s natural environment. WBAN is used to perform the daily routine through contented and unobtrusive way. The technology offers cheap, easy and quick respondent history of the patient.
Wireless body area network’s design comprises of unique purpose sensor which can freely link with several appliances and sensors found outside as well as inside the human body.
The figure below illustrates a simple wireless body area network architecture whereby it comprises of various sections.
In the figure above, the infrastructure of the network is categorized into four sections. The first category comprises of the wireless body area network section which includes of a number of sensor nodes. The nodes uses nodes of low-power and are also cheap and contain physiological and inertial sensors strategically located on the body of the human. The sensors are used for monitoring the movement, crucial factors like the blood pressure, ECG, the rate of the heart and the surrounding environment continuously. There is a large number of systems of monitoring that are already in use based on connections that area wireless. Use of wired connections in monitoring systems could be hectic as when a person wears the connection as it would limit the person’s mobility. Therefore, use of wireless body area network would be very effective in the system of healthcare in situations whereby continuous monitoring is required as well as mobility.
The section that follows comprises of the node of coordination whereby all the sensor nodes are connected directly with a node of coordination referred to as Central Control Unit, CCU. The CCU collects all the data contained in the sensor nodes and delivers it to the subsequent section. However, when it comes to monitoring the activities of the human body, no such technology that is wireless, is fixed for targeting wireless body area network. Majority of the wireless technologies that are used for systems of medical monitoring are WiFi, 3G, WLAN, GSM, WPAN (ZigBee, Bluetooth) and 4G (Khan and Tuce, 2010). The listed technologies are mainly cover the communication in short distances apart from the Cellular network standard.
The third part comprises of the wireless body area network communication that acts as a gateway for transferring data to the destination. For a remote station to transfer information to a cellular network, a mobile node may be used as a gateway and send the message through the use of GSM/3G/4G. On the other hand, a PC or a router may be used as the remote node to communicate through email or other services using Ethernet as illustrated in the figure below.
The final part is comprised of a control center that comprises of the end node devices like the pc used in monitoring, mobile phone for messaging and server and email used in storing information in the database.
There are several requirements that must be met to set up the body area network. They include:
They collect data on physical stimuli
It collects the information acquired by the sensor nodes and notifies the user.
Comprises of the database for storing data, processing and software analysis.
The energy is required in three domains. They include; sensing, communication and data processing.
The success rate of the body area network depends on the rates of the data (Otto el al., 2009).
The following requirements should be met to ensure that security of the data in the network.
A number of short range wireless technologies are involved in body area network. They include:
This is a short range standard wireless communication (Adibi, 2015). It creates a network that has security and low consumption of power. A basic network of Bluetooth creates a Piconet whereby a device with Bluetooth acts as the master while 7 other devices enabled with Bluetooth act as slaves. This enables the devices to simultaneously communicate. A number of Piconets can be used to form another Bluetooth network referred to as Scatternet. Here, a Piconet node (slave or master) connects with a slave in a different Piconet. In wireless body area network, Bluetooth can be used to send data in applications like between a PC and the area network or between the area network and servers.
The network topology of ZigBee comprises of devices like the router, coordinator and end device. In every network of ZigBee, there is one coordinator. The coordinator is responsible for starting the network and handling management roles and functions of data routing. ZigBee consumes low power hence the end devices used are battery empowered. The end devices used are sensors configured for that function and are linked to the network via the routers. The routers enable information transmission through multi-hop ZigBee networks. However, for the network which is point to multipoint and point to point, routers are not used (Liu et al., 2013).
WiFi has four standards that runs in ISM band 2.4 and 5GHz and covers about 100 meters. It enables transferring of data at a speed of the broadband after connecting to an access point or in the mode of ad hoc. It is best suitable for transferring large amounts of data with a connectivity of high speed that enables voice calls, video conferencing and streaming.
A number of applications have been developed through this technology which have helped in a number of functions. They include:
Body area network offers medical sensors that can be worn and used at the patient’s homes. They measure physiological data of the patient’s body, store or transmit the data in a specific server of the medical center or unit of control in a regular interval. This enables the patient to remain at home instead of hospital and get the support needed. If an emergency occurs, emergency sensors located on the body raise an alarm and notify the nearest medical center.
Here, remote monitoring is enabled as the vital organs of a patient can be done automatically. Sensors located on the patient’s body are capable of sending the status of the organs like the blood pressure, heart activity and temperature movement among others to observe the movement of the patient. The information gathered is monitored and stored remotely or from the unit of control (Poon, Zhang and Bao, 2014).
Wireless body area network enables patients to receive health care services over long distances whereby a patient can consult a doctor through video calling, medical reports can also be transmitted online among others. Through WBAN, patients can receive treatment and monitoring from anywhere (Vallejos de Schatz et al., 2012).
WBAN has also made an impact in the sector of entertainment and life style. It offers help in navigation while driving or walking, playback of videos and audios, exploration of new cities, making video calls among others (Chen et al., 2011)
The BAN enabled devices that can be worn enable effective monitoring of physiological activities of the people wearing them such as the respiration rate, blood pressure among others of the athlete in sports (Jovanov et al., 2015).
Wireless body area network can be applied in the battlefield by the soldiers while communicating and transmit their roles such as running, retreating, attacking among others to the base commander. The sensors implanted on the uniform of the military can be used to observe location, health condition, hydration levels and temperature of the soldiers (Monton et al., 2016).
Conclusion
Wireless body area network is a technology that is growing rapidly and is expected to have a huge effect in our society and also in the medical field and fields that are not medical as well. The report above has provided an insight on body area network whereby its architecture, technology, deployment, merits and merits have been discussed. A number of short range wireless technology of communication which may be adopted in the wireless body area network have also been highlighted.
Finally, apart from the above issues discussed, there is a number of factors that are non-technical that would largely impact the success rate of the advancement of the wireless body area network which include legal, ethical and regulatory issues, affordability, comfort, user friendliness and acceptance.
References
Adibi, S., Ed., 2015. Mobile Health: A Technology Road Map. Vol. 5, Springer, Berlin.
Chen, M., Gonzalez, S., Vasilakos, A., Cao, H. and Leung, V.C., 2011. Body area networks: A survey. Mobile networks and applications, 16(2), pp.171-193.
Jovanov, E., Milenkovic, A., Otto, C. and De Groen, P.C., 2015. A wireless body area network of intelligent motion sensors for computer assisted physical rehabilitation. Journal of NeuroEngineering and rehabilitation, 2(1), p.6.
Khan, J.Y. and Tuce, M.R., 2010. Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) for Medical Applications: New Developments in Biomedical Engineering. InTech, 593-596.
Li, M., Lou, W. and Ren, K., 2010. Data security and privacy in wireless body area networks. IEEE Wireless communications, 17(1).
Liu, Y.H., Huang, X., Vidojkovic, M., Ba, A., Harpe, P., Dolmans, G. and de Groot, H., 2013, February. A 1.9 nJ/b 2.4 GHz multistandard (Bluetooth Low Energy/Zigbee/IEEE802. 15.6) transceiver for personal/body-area networks. In Solid-State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers (ISSCC), 2013 IEEE International (pp. 446-447). IEEE.
Monton, E., Hernandez, J.F., Blasco, J.M., Hervé, T., Micallef, J., Grech, I., Brincat, A. and Traver, V., 2016. Body area network for wireless patient monitoring. IET communications, 2(2), p.215.
Otto, C., Milenkovic, A., Sanders, C. and Jovanov, E., 2009. System architecture of a wireless body area sensor network for ubiquitous health monitoring. Journal of mobile multimedia, 1(4), pp.307-326.
Poon, C.C., Zhang, Y.T. and Bao, S.D., 2014. A novel biometrics method to secure wireless body area sensor networks for telemedicine and m-health. IEEE Communications Magazine, 44(4), pp.73-81.
Vallejos de Schatz, C.H., Medeiros, H.P., Schneider, F.K. and Abatti, P.J., 2012. Wireless Medical Sensor Networks: Design Requirements and Enabling Technologies. Telemedicine and e-Health, 18, 394-39
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