To avoid idle listening and to improve energy efficiency in short range communication networks, a generic wakeup radio (WUR) based medium access control (GWR-MAC) protocol is proposed. GWR-MAC is not restricted to a specific WUR technology or data radio technology, and therefore it is suitable for a variety of scenarios in wireless sensor and body area networks. GWR-MAC includes a bidirectional wake-up procedure and a transmission period for data communication. Two different options for the wake-up procedure are defined: source-initiated and sink-initiated. The data transmission period can be implemented by using different type of channel access methods, which enables scalability. This paper describes the GWR-MAC protocol and an analytical model which is used to explore the energy efficiency of the proposed GWR-MAC based network and conventional duty cycle MAC based network. The comparison is done as a function of number of events to enable the selection of a correct radio technology for different application scenarios. The results clearly illustrate the usefulness and energy efficiency of the proposed protocol especially in applications that have low event frequency and require a low delay wake-up procedure.
In this conceptual paper, we discuss the concept of hospital of the future (HoF) and the requirements for its wireless connectivity. The HoF will be mostly wireless, connecting patients, healthcare professionals, sensors, computers and medical devices. Spaces of the HoF are first characterized in terms of communicational performance requirements. In order to fulfil the stringent requirements of future healthcare scenarios, such as enhanced performance, security, safety, privacy, and spectrum usage, we propose a flexible hybrid optical-radio wireless network to provide efficient, high-performance wireless connectivity for the HoF. We introduce the concept of connected HoF exploiting reconfigurable hybrid optical-radio networks. Such a network can be dynamically reconfigured to transmit and receive optical, radio or both signals, depending on the requirements of the application. We envisage that HoF will consist of numerous communication devices and hybrid optical-radio access points to transmit data using radio waves and visible light. Light-based communications exploit the idea of visible light communications (VLC), where solid-state luminaries, white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) provide both room illumination as well as optical wireless communications (OWC). The hybrid radio-optical communication system can be used in principle in every scenario of the HoF. In addition to the hybrid access, we also propose a reconfigurable opticalradio communications wireless body area network (WBAN), extending the conventional WBAN to more generic and highly flexible solution. As the radio spectrum is becoming more and more congested, hybrid wireless network approach is an attractive solution to use the spectrum more efficiently. The concept of HoF aims at enhancing healthcare while using hospital resources efficiently. The enormous surge in novel communication technologies such as internet of things (IoT) sensors and wireless medical communications devices could be undermined by spectral congestion, security, safety and privacy issues of radio networks. The considered solution, combining optical and radio transmission network could increase spectral efficiency, enhancing privacy while reducing patient exposure to radio frequency (RF). Parallel radio-optical communications can enhance reliability and security. We also discuss possible operation scenarios and applications that can be introduced in HoF as well as outline potential challenges. Keywords Hospital of the future • Reconfigurable networks • Visible light communications • Hybrid wireless networks • Optical wireless communications • Wireless body area networks
Abstract-T h e g o a l o f t h i s p a p e r i s t o p r o v i d e acomprehensive overview of the coexistence nature of wireless technologies most likely to be found in medical scenarios' environment. The diversity and number of these technologies is increasing constantly leading to potential interference problems and performance degradation of wireless medical applications which are expected to become popular in 5G systems. The industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) bands in the 2.4 GHz are already very crowded to the point that the location and use of medical devices have to take into account the pervasive presence of other wireless devices operating in that region of the spectrum. A temporary solution is to use more the 5 GHz bands currently not so heavily utilized. This scenario will change in the near future as unlicensed long-term evolution (LTE) solutions such as MulteFire start operating in those bands. This paper provides a summary of the wireless technologies and devices present in hospitals and other medical care scenarios. It also provides recommendations for the rational share of the spectrum in those scenarios.
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