Introduction
Body area networks (BAN) are a form of wireless personal area network (WPAN) and it has recently been accepted as 4th generation mobile communications systems taking the form of human to human networking incorporating wearable sensors and communication. BAN is normally thought of as wireless sensor networks (WSN) however in this paper we try to elaborate on how BAN works. BAN can take various forms, it incorporates the use of sensors which can be found in, on or around the body and it uses different types of communication. In the following section we shall elaborate on the specific communication architecture used by BAN.
Communication Architecture (by Ivy Wainaina)
The BAN communication architecture is divided into 3 tiers namely:
• Tier 1 – Intra-Ban communication design
• Tier 2 – Inter-Ban communication design
• Tier 3 – Beyond-Ban communication design
As shown in the image below, it depicts an example of a BAN implementation.
Figure 1: BAN 3-tier communication architecture.
Intra-BAN communication design
It handles communication between body sensors and the communication between the sensors with the personal server (PS). The design of this layer is critical as the sensors are battery-operated and have low bit rates thus it’s important that there is an energy-efficient MAC protocol with QoS provisioning.
The connection between the sensors and PS can be wired or wireless. In wired they use MIThril and SMART to connect the sensors to the PS. MIThril is a wearable computing platform that is used to monitor a user’s physiological state and the surrounding environment in real time. In wireless they use CodeBlue to connect the sensors directly to the access points.
Topologies implemented are star and mesh. In a star...
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... (IOT), the use of BAN is exponentially increasing in the society from clothing, shoes, body implants and other wearable sensors. The BAN is able to link to WSN as shown in figure 7 below. For example, a patient with chronic illnesses such as heart disease, liver and kidney failure might have sensors placed in or on their body and in the environment around them such as chairs or bed. In this instance, if they happen to have a cardiac arrest the in body sensor will relay this information to the doctors furthermore with the integration to WSN the doctor is able to determine the exact location of the patient (the chair). The challenge to engineers especially in developing countries is to come up with tailored uses of BAN, bearing in mind the timely transmission and synchronization of data from the various sensors is crucial in the use of BAN.
Figure 7: IOT and BAN
In the final chapter of The Impossible Knife of Memory, the main character of the book, Hayley begins it off talking about being in a fairytale. If this was her fairytale, this chapter would be her happily ever after. Before this chapter of the book, her life had been disorganized frequently because of her father’s disorder. Her father, Andy Kincain, a war veteran, has PTSD. Also known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; this disorder is caused by seeing or experiencing a very intense, and terrifying event. In Andy’s case, the war was what caused his condition.
The placement of implantable chips into patients for the purpose of accurately identifying patients and properly storing their medical history records has become a subject of a strong debate. Making sure patients are properly identified before a procedure and storing their health history records for future use has been difficult, if not impossible. The idea of being able to retrieve accurate patient’s medical history for a follow up care without relying on patient’s memory is a challenging task for many healthcare organizations. Many ideas and technologies have been introduced over the years to help solve this problem, but unfortunately the problem is still not fully resolved. There are still many errors in the healthcare due in part by improper record keeping and inaccurate patient identification. One idea that has being in discussion to eliminate these problems for good, is the introduction of a chip or radio frequency identification (RFID) technology implanted into human for the purpose storing medical data and accurately identify patients. VeriChip Corporation is currently the maker of this implantable RFID chip. They are the only corporation cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make this implantable radio frequency transponder system for humans for the purpose of identifying patients and storing their health history information. The chip was first developed for the use of radar systems by Scottish physicist, Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt in 1935 just before World War II. (Roberti, 2007). This technology helps identify approaching planes of the enemy from mile away. Today, RFID has several uses. It is used for animal tracking. It is attached to merchandise in stores to prevent theft. It can be instal...
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wearables that connect to apps such as MapFitnessPal. The apps provide consumers with the ability to track their food consumption, and view a nutritional breakdown of their food intake.
Mann, S., Nolan, J. and Wellman, B.. “Sous-veillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments.” Surveillance & Society 1.3 (2003): 331-55. Web. 4 Mar. 2010.
Also, it requires a fast and secure communication to monitor real-time connection status to act as Energy Manager. [SANCHEZ]
It runs a RealAudio Server over TCP with media stream transmission via UDP for supplying sound clips.
With this newer technology Physicians, nurses, and other approved medical staff have the option to monitor their patient’s heart functionality, and fix pacemaker electrical signals to fit patients need from a mobile device, without ever bringing the patient into the Physicians’ office. Cardiac remote patient monitoring uses smart phones, and specific designed (secured) e-mails to deliver information sent from the device implanted within the patient’s heart. This allows medical staff to receive pertinent up-to date- information on the condition of the patient’s pacemaker, and heart. This can help create profound patient care, early critical heart failure, or heart defibrillation detection; while adding to medical staff’s proficiency, and cutting costly emergency room visits with prevention detection ("Remote Monitoring Technology Improves Pacemaker Performance", 2012).
8) Ian F. Akyildiz, Ismail H. Kasimoglu, “Ad Hoc Networks’’, Wireless sensor and actor networks: Research Challenges, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, May-2004.
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