System architecture of wireless body sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless Body Sensor Networks (WBSNs) emerged as a design solution of choice for a number of wearable and ubiquitous monitoring applications. Although useful as stand alone monitoring systems, full potential of WBSNs might be explored by integrating individual on-body systems into hierarchical real-time systems to support unobtrusive ubiquitous applications with intermittent communication. However, resource constrains of the lowest levels of the system architecture demand careful system design and specific trade offs in the WBSN design space. Typical issues include proper design of the wireless communication system, buffering, and real-time latency. These issues are application dependent and critically influence system performance and user acceptance. This paper presents system architecture of the hierarchical wireless body sensor networks and design issues in the WBSN design space. © 2009 IEEE.