Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) for Medical Applications

Abstract

With the rapid advancements of wireless communication and semiconductor technologies the area of sensor network has grown significantly supporting a range of applications including medical and healthcare systems. A Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a special purpose sensor network designed to operate autonomously to connect various medical sensors and appliances, located inside and outside of a human body. Introduction of a WBAN for medical monitoring and other applications will offer flexibilities and cost saving options to both health care professionals and patients. A WBAN system can offer two significant advantages compared to current electronic patient monitoring systems. The first advantage is the mobility of patients due to use of portable monitoring devices. Second advantage is the location independent monitoring facility. A WBAN node being an autonomous device can search and find a suitable communication network to transmit data to a remote database server for storage. It is also possible that a WBAN will connect it self to the internet to transmit data in a non-invasive manner.