Review of wireless body area networks: protocols, technologies, and applications

Abstract

Nowadays, technology plays a vital part in our daily lives. Especially in medicine, such as consultations, examination, and operation, these processes are necessary and must be utilized accordingly. Medical checkups are required to ensure the patient’s wellbeing. However, many people suffer from severe health conditions and are not always able to leave the house for examination. They are also not aware of potential risks within their body and therefore, don’t feel the need to be examined. With the rise of new technological advantages, new solutions are being presented to tackle those issues. In the field of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the wireless body area network (WBAN), alongside with its features and functionalities, can be regarded as one of the potential innovations for medicine, military, sport, and entertainment. With its tiny sensors, as well as with its plethora of applications, the WBAN is an excellent choice for remote medical surveillance and treatment. Furthermore, various routing protocols can provide proper solutions, depending on the application needs. However, challenges, such as energy efficiency, and security. are being further developed to improve the needs of its demands. This review is an overview of WBAN technologies, protocols, applications and potential challenges.

The Role of Emergent Technologies in the Dynamic and Kinematic Assessment of Human Movement in Sport and Clinical Applications

“…[51] presents a wearable wireless system designed to implement a medical IoT for patient health parameters such as the electrocardiogram Several wireless standardized sports protocols with different bands, data rates, transmission ranges, and network topologies are available [44]. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and ZigBee are wireless communication systems utilizing the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band [48]. However, until the early 2000s, no universal communication standard was suitable for sports and health applications developed among the leading vendors (Advanced and Adaptive Network Technology-ANT+) [49].…”

A review of wireless body area networks

“…To achieve differentiated QoS, optimization of various MAC parameters is essential. The coordinator should be able to selectively allocate radio resources to each sensor node based on their traffic priorities, thereby providing high priority traffic with differential QoS [41]. For instance, emergency or critical traffic can be better supported by allocating more dedicated time slots to the sensor nodes handling such crucial information.…”