Wireless Body Area Network: An Overview and Various Applications

https://file.scirp.org/pdf/JCC_2017051714502747.pdf

Over the past years a booming interest is comprehended in the field of wireless communication for the development of a monitoring system to observe
human vital organs activities remotely. Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN)
is such network that provides a continuous monitoring over or inside human
body for a long period and can support transmission of real time traffic such
as data, voice, video to observe the status of vital organs functionalities. In this
paper an overview of WBAN technology and its requirements has been narrated. The aim of this paper was to offer a suitable and appropriate wireless
technology for deploying WBAN. Several suitable short range wireless communication technologies that can be adopted in WBAN have also been discussed. Finally numerous applications in the field of medical and non-medical
sectors using WBAN technology have been outlined.
2. WBAN Architecture
WBAN is designed with special purpose sensor which can autonomously connect with various sensors and appliances, located inside and outside of a human
body.
Figure 1 demonstrates a simple WBAN architecture where the architecture is
divided into several sections. Here we have classified the network architecture
into four sections. The first section is the WBAN part which consists of several
numbers of sensor nodes. These nodes are cheap and low-power nodes with inertial and physiological sensors, strategically placed on the human body. All the
sensors can be used for continuous monitoring of movement, vital parameters
like heart rate, ECG, Blood pressure etc. and the surrounding environment.
There are vast monitoring systems are being used already based on wired connections. Any wired connection in a monitoring system can be problematic and
awkward worn by a person and could restrict his mobility. So, WBAN can be a
very effective solution in this area especially in a healthcare system where a patient needs to be monitored continuously and requires mobility.
The next section is the coordination node where the entire sensor nodes will
directly connected with a coordination node known as Central Control Unit
(CCU). CCU takes the responsibility to collect information from the sensor
nodes and to deliver to the next section. For monitoring human body activities
Figure 1. WBAN Architecture.
Md. T. Arefin et al.
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there is no such wireless technology is fixed for targeting WBAN. Most popular
wireless technologies used for medical monitoring system are WLAN, WiFi,
GSM, 3G, 4G,WPAN (Bluetooth, ZigBee) etc. [1]. Except Cellular network
standard all of these technologies are commonly available for short distance
communication. WMTS (Wireless Medical Telemetry Service) and Ultra-Wide
Band [1] are another technology that could be used for body monitoring system