Intelligent Bi-LSTM with Architecture Optimization for Heart Disease Prediction in WBAN through Optimal Channel Selection and Feature Selection

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a trending technology of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to enhance the healthcare system. This system is developed to monitor individuals by observing their physical signals to offer physical activity status as a wearable low-cost system that is considered an unremarkable solution for continuous monitoring of cardiovascular health. Various studies have discussed the uses of WBAN in Personal Health Monitoring systems (PHM) based on real-world health monitoring models. The major goal of WBAN is to offer early and fast analysis of the individuals but it is not able to attain its potential by utilizing conventional expert systems and data mining. Multiple kinds of research are performed in WBAN based on routing, security, energy efficiency, etc. This paper suggests a new heart disease prediction under WBAN. Initially, the standard patient data regarding heart diseases are gathered from benchmark datasets using WBAN. Then, the channel selections for data transmission are carried out through the Improved Dingo Optimizer (IDOX) algorithm using a multi-objective function. Through the selected channel, the data are transmitted for the deep feature extraction process using One Dimensional-Convolutional Neural Networks (ID-CNN) and Autoencoder. Then, the optimal feature selections are done through the IDOX algorithm for getting more suitable features. Finally, the IDOX-based heart disease prediction is done by Modified Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (M-BiLSTM), where the hyperparameters of BiLSTM are tuned using the IDOX algorithm. Thus, the empirical outcomes of the given offered method show that it accurately categorizes a patient's health status founded on abnormal vital signs that is useful for providing the proper medical care to the patients.

Wireless Body Area Network for Preventing Self-Inoculation Transmission of Respiratory Viral Diseases

This paper proposes an idea of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) based on Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) standards to recognize and alarm a gesture of touching the face, and in effect, to prevent self-inoculation of respiratory viral diseases, such as COVID-19 or influenza A, B, or C. The proposed network comprises wireless modules placed in bracelets and a necklace. It relies on the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurements between the bracelet and necklace modules. The measured signal is cleared of noise using the exponential moving average (EMA). Next, we use a classification algorithm based on a Least-Squares Support Vector Machine (LSSVM) in order to detect facial touches. When the results of the classification indicate that the hand is moving toward the face, an alarm is sent through the neck module and the vibrator embedded in the wrist module is switched on. Based on the performed tests, it can be concluded that the proposed solution is characterized by high accuracy and reliability. It should be useful, especially for individuals who are regularly exposed to the risk of respiratory infections.

Tele-Monitoring System for Chronic Diseases Management: Requirements and Architecture

In the last years a large variety of eHealth services and Apps for professional medical users have been developed for different scenarios. The increasing elderly population (+100% in 2050) makes urgent to implement tele-medicine paradigm in the healthcare structures. The need of monitoring large number of patients distributed over the territory, together with the lack of medical resources, makes the adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) crucial for the future healthcare services. This paper presents an ICT architecture model for the provision of tele-monitoring services within a novel proposed remote monitoring concept for healthcare, considering the new Family and Community Nurse (FCN). An integrated and personalized tele-monitoring solution is presented, through a detailed description of the reference network architecture and service platform. Moreover, the preliminary results of the experimental activities carried out for the evaluation of the system in terms of usability in operational scenarios are provided.

Mobile Health in Remote Patient Monitoring for Chronic Diseases: Principles, Trends, and Challenges

Chronic diseases are becoming more widespread. Treatment and monitoring of these diseases require going to hospitals frequently, which increases the burdens of hospitals and patients. Presently, advancements in wearable sensors and communication protocol contribute to enriching the healthcare system in a way that will reshape healthcare services shortly. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is the foremost of these advancements. RPM systems are based on the collection of patient vital signs extracted using invasive and noninvasive techniques, then sending them in real-time to physicians. These data may help physicians in taking the right decision at the right time. The main objective of this paper is to outline research directions on remote patient monitoring, explain the role of AI in building RPM systems, make an overview of the state of the art of RPM, its advantages, its challenges, and its probable future directions. For studying the literature, five databases have been chosen (i.e., science direct, IEEE-Explore, Springer, PubMed, and science.gov). We followed the (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) PRISMA, which is a standard methodology for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. A total of 56 articles are reviewed based on the combination of a set of selected search terms including RPM, data mining, clinical decision support system, electronic health record, cloud computing, internet of things, and wireless body area network. The result of this study approved the effectiveness of RPM in improving healthcare delivery, increase diagnosis speed, and reduce costs. To this end, we also present the chronic disease monitoring system as a case study to provide enhanced solutions for RPMs.

Fully Flexible Textile Antenna-Backed Sensor Node for Body-Worn UWB Localization

A mechanically flexible textile antenna-backed sensor node is designed and manufactured, providing accurate personal localization functionality by application of Decawave's DW1000 Impulse Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR-UWB) Integrated Circuit (IC). All components are mounted on a flexible polyimide foil, which is integrated on the backplane of a wearable cavity-backed slot antenna designed for IR-UWB localization in Channels 2 and 3 of the IEEE 802.15.4-2011 standard (3744 MHz-4742.4 MHz). The textile antenna's radiation pattern is optimized to mitigate body effects and to minimize absorption by body tissues. Furthermore, its time-domain characteristics are measured to be adequate for localization. By combining the antenna and the bendable Printed Circuit Board (PCB), a mechanically supple sensor system is realized, for which the performance is validated by examining it as a node used in a complete localization system. This shows that six nodes around the body must be deployed to provide system coverage in all directions around the wearer. Even without using sleep mode functionalities, the measurements indicate that the system's autonomy is 13.3 h on a 5 V 200 mAh battery. Hence, this system acts as a proof of concept for the joining of localization electronics and other sensors with a full-textile antenna into a mechanically flexible sensor system.

Meta-Wearable Antennas-A Review of Metamaterial Based Antennas in Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) has attracted more and more attention in many sectors of society. As a critical component in these systems, wearable antennas suffer from several serious challenges, e.g., electromagnetic coupling between the human body and the antennas, different physical deformations, and widely varying operating environments, and thus, advanced design methods and techniques are urgently needed to alleviate these limitations. Recent developments have focused on the application of metamaterials in wearable antennas, which is a prospective area and has unique advantages. This article will review the key progress in metamaterial-based antennas for WBAN applications, including wearable antennas involved with composite right/left-handed transmission lines (CRLH TLs), wearable antennas based on metasurfaces, and reconfigurable wearable antennas based on tunable metamaterials. These structures have resulted in improved performance of wearable antennas with minimal effects on the human body, which consequently will result in more reliable wearable communication. In addition, various design methodologies of meta-wearable antennas are summarized, and the applications of wearable antennas by these methods are discussed.

Optimal Design of Switchable Wearable Antenna Array for Wireless Sensor Networks

In the paper, we present a novel approach to the optimum design of wearable antenna arrays intended for off-body links of wireless body area networks. Specifically, we investigate a four-element array that has a switchable radiation pattern able to direct its higher gain towards a signal source and a lower gain towards an interference. The aim is to increase the signal to interference ratio. We apply a genetic algorithm to optimize both the spatial placement and the feed phasing of the elementary on-body antennas. We propose a simplified, computationally efficient model for the simulation of the array radiation pattern. The model is based on full-wave simulations obtained with a simplified cylindrical model of the human body. We also propose, implement, and evaluate four objective functions based on signal to interference ratio, i.e., min-max, nadir point distance maximization, utopia point distance minimization, and full Pareto-like. Our optimized design obtained with this approach exhibits a significant performance improvement in comparison to the initial heuristic design.

Performance Evaluation of RTS/CTS Scheme in Beacon-Enabled IEEE 802.15.6 MAC Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks

The IEEE 802.15.6 standard has the potential to provide cost-effective and unobtrusive medical services to individuals with chronic health conditions. It is a low-power standard developed for wireless body area networks and enables wireless communication inside or near a human body. This standard utilizes a Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol to improve network performance under different channel access priorities. However, the CSMA/CA proposed in the IEEE 802.15.6 standard has poor throughput performance and link reliability when some of the nodes deployed on a human body are hidden from each other. We employ the RTS/CTS scheme to solve hidden node problems in IEEE 802.15.6 networks over a lossy channel. To improve performance of the RTS/CTS scheme, we adjust transmission power levels of the nodes according to transmission failures. We estimate throughput and energy consumption of the proposed model by differentiating several parameters, such as contention window size, values of bit error ratios, number of nodes in different priority classes. The performance results are obtained through analytical approximations and simulations. We observe that the proposed model significantly improves performance of the IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA by resolving hidden node problems.

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN)-Based Telemedicine for Emergency Care

This paper is a collection of telemedicine techniques used by wireless body area networks (WBANs) for emergency conditions. Furthermore, Bayes’ theorem is proposed for predicting emergency conditions. With prior knowledge, the posterior probability can be found along with the observed evidence. The probability of sending emergency messages can be determined using Bayes’ theorem with the likelihood evidence. It can be viewed as medical decision-making, since diagnosis conditions such as emergency monitoring, delay-sensitive monitoring, and general monitoring are analyzed with its network characteristics, including data rate, cost, packet loss rate, latency, and jitter. This paper explains the network model with 16 variables, with one describing immediate consultation, as well as another three describing emergency monitoring, delay-sensitive monitoring, and general monitoring. The remaining 12 variables are observations related to latency, cost, packet loss rate, data rate, and jitter.

Energy-Efficient Protocol of Link Scheduling in Cognitive Radio Body Area Networks for Medical and Healthcare Applications

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) have become a new paradigm for electronic healthcare applications; for instance, they are used to efficiently monitor patients in real-time. In this paper, an energy-efficient link scheduling (ELS) protocol for cognitive radio body area networks (CRBANs) is proposed, which aims to minimize energy consumption in CRBANs, while achieving higher probabilities of successful transmissions with multiple CRBANs. The proposed ELS transmits packets in the common control channel to control transmission links amongst CRBANs to the gateway and vice versa. The transmissions of CRBANs to the gateway are scheduled at a specific time by the gateway in different data channels, according to the traffic priority of CRBANs. Packet delivery ratio, delay, and energy consumption are evaluated for multiple CRBANs via extensive simulation.

Validation of Wired and Wireless Interconnected Body Sensor Networks

Current medical facilities usually lead to a very high cost especially for developing countries, rural areas and mass casualty incidents. Therefore, advanced electronic health systems are gaining momentum. In this paper, we first compared our novel off the shelf experimental wired Body Sensor Networks (BSN), that is, Digital First Aid (DigiAID) with the existing commercial product called as Hexoskin. We showed the viability of DigiAID through extensive real measurements during daily activities by both male and females. It was found that the major hurdle was wires to be worn by the subjects. Accordingly, we proposed and characterized the wireless DigiAID platform for wireless BSN (WBSN). Understanding the effect of body movements on wireless data transmission in WBSN is also of major importance. Therefore, this paper comprehensively evaluates and analyzes the impact of body movements, (a) to ensure transmission of data at different radio power levels and (b) its impact on the topology of the WBSN. Based on this we have proposed a dynamic power control algorithm that adapts the transmitting power according to the packet reception in an energy efficient manner. The results show that we have achieved substantial power savings at various nodes attached to the human body.

Wireless body area network for health monitoring

A Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consists basically of a group of nodes, that communicate with each other through a wireless transmission, and does not need any existing infrastructure. The recent developments in technology and wireless communication, to be used in various applications, foster the development of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). They are emerging as important networks in order to reduce the need for patients, and to help the elderly and chronically ill people to live an independent life. In this paper, we propose a routing protocol for wireless body area networks, to transfer data in the network with minimum energy consumption, and longer network lifetime through multi-hop communication. The proposed protocol has been verified by performing simulations, and the obtained results show that our routing protocol ensures a robust optimisation of the energy consumption which helps to increase the lifetime of the network and its stability.

Data Storage Mechanism Based on Blockchain with Privacy Protection in Wireless Body Area Network

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are expected to play a vital role in the field of patient-health monitoring shortly. They provide a convenient way to collect patient data, but they also bring serious problems which are mainly reflected in the safe storage of the collected data. The privacy and security of data storage in WBAN devices cannot meet the needs of WBAN users. Therefore, this paper adopts blockchain technology to store data, which improves the security of the collected data. Moreover, a storage model based on blockchain in WBAN is proposed in our solution. However, blockchain storage brings new problems, for example, that the storage space of blockchain is small, and the stored content is open to unauthorized attackers. To solve the problems above, this paper proposed a sequential aggregate signature scheme with a designated verifier (DVSSA) to ensure that the user’s data can only be viewed by the designated person and to protect the privacy of the users of WBAN. In addition, the new signature scheme can also compress the size of the blockchain storage space.

Analysis on the Effects of the Human Body on the Performance of Electro-Textile Antennas for Wearable Monitoring and Tracking Application

Previous works have shown that wearable antennas can operate ideally in free space; however, degradation in performance, specifically in terms of frequency shifts and efficiency was observed when an antenna structure was in close proximity to the human body. These issues have been highlighted many times yet, systematic and numerical analysis on how the dielectric characteristics may affect the technical behavior of the antenna has not been discussed in detail. In this paper, a wearable antenna, developed from a new electro-textile material has been designed, and the step-by-step manufacturing process is presented. Through analysis of the frequency detuning effect, the on-body behavior of the antenna is evaluated by focusing on quantifying the changes of its input impedance and near-field distribution caused by the presence of lossy dielectric material. When the antenna is attached to the top of the body fat phantom, there is an increase of 17% in impedance, followed by 19% for the muscle phantom and 20% for the blood phantom. These phenomena correlate with the electric field intensities (V/m) observed closely at the antenna through various layers of mediums (z-axis) and along antenna edges (y-axis), which have shown significant increments of 29.7% in fat, 35.3% in muscle and 36.1% in blood as compared to free space. This scenario has consequently shown that a significant amount of energy is absorbed in the phantoms instead of radiated to the air which has caused a substantial drop in efficiency and gain. Performance verification is also demonstrated by using a fabricated human muscle phantom, with a dielectric constant of 48, loss tangent of 0.29 and conductivity of 1.22 S/m.

A Spectrum-Aware Priority-Based Link Scheduling Algorithm for Cognitive Radio Body Area Networks

With the development of wireless communication technology, wireless body area networks (WBANs) have become a fundamental support tool in medical applications. In a real hospital scenario, however, the interference between wireless medical devices and WBANs may cause a high packet drop rate and high latency, which is harmful to patients using healthcare services. Nonetheless, cognitive radio is a promising technology for sharing the precious spectrum, which has high efficiency of the wireless resource. Thus, WBANs with cognitive radio capability are also exploited. We propose a spectrum-aware priority-based link scheduling (SPLS) algorithm for cognitive radio body area networks (CRBANs) in a real hospital scenario. In SPLS, three channels are used: DataCh, EDataCh, and CtrlCh for normal data, emergency data, and control messages, respectively. To avoid collision during data transmission, neighboring CRBANs send messages regarding the channel state with CtrlCh before the scheduling. The CRBANs can share DataCh in the time domain for improving the throughput. The SPLS algorithm allows a CRBAN to access idle channels on the licensed and unlicensed spectrum according to the CRBAN traffic. Our simulation results show that the proposed SPLS outperformed the conventional scheme in terms of packet delivery ratio, system throughput, latency, and energy efficiency.

A Posture Recognition Method Based on Indoor Positioning Technology

Posture recognition has been widely applied in fields such as physical training, environmental awareness, human-computer-interaction, surveillance system and elderly health care. The traditional methods consist of two main variations: machine vision methods and acceleration sensor methods. The former has the disadvantages of privacy invasion, high cost and complex implementation processes, while the latter has low recognition rate for still postures. A new body posture recognition scheme based on indoor positioning technology is presented in this paper. A single deployed indoor positioning system is constructed by installing wearable receiving tags at key points of the human body. The distance measurement method with ultra-wide band (UWB) radio is applied to position the key points of human body. Posture recognition is implemented by positioning. In the posture recognition algorithm, least square estimation (LSE) method and the improved extended Kalman filtering (iEKF) algorithm are respectively adopted to suppress the noise of the distances measurement and to improve the accuracy of positioning and recognition. The comparison of simulation results with the two methods shows that the improved extended Kalman filtering algorithm is more effective in error performance.

A Software Defined Radio Evaluation Platform for WBAN Systems

In recent years, the Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) concept has attracted significant academic and industrial attention. WBAN specifies a network dedicated to collecting personal biomedical data from advanced sensors that are then used for health and lifestyle purposes. In 2012, the 802.15.6 WBAN standard was released by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which regulates and specifies the configurations of WBAN. Compared to the prevailing wireless communication technologies such as Bluetooth and ZigBee, the WBAN standard has the advantages of ultra-low power consumption, high reliability, and high-security protection while transmitting sensitive personal data. Based on the standard specification, several implementations have been published. However, in terms of evaluation, different designs were implemented in proprietary evaluation environments, which may lead to unfair comparison. In this paper, a Software-Defined Radio (SDR) evaluation platform for WBAN systems is proposed to evaluate the RF channel specified in the IEEE 802.15.6 standard. A narrowband communication protocol demonstration with a security scheme in WBAN has been performed to successfully validate the design in the proposed evaluation platform.

Critical Data-Based Incremental Cooperative Communication for Wireless Body Area Network

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are single-hop network systems, where sensors gather the body’s vital signs and send them directly to master nodes (MNs). The sensors are distributed in or on the body. Therefore, body posture, clothing, muscle movement, body temperature, and climatic conditions generally influence the quality of the wireless link between sensors and the destination. Hence, in some cases, single hop transmission (‘direct transmission’) is not sufficient to deliver the signals to the destination. Therefore, we propose an emergency-based cooperative communication protocol for WBAN, named Critical Data-based Incremental Cooperative Communication (CD-ICC), based on the IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA standard but assuming a lognormal shadowing channel model. In this paper, a complete study of a system model is inspected in the terms of the channel path loss, the successful transmission probability, and the outage probability. Then a mathematical model is derived for the proposed protocol, end-to-end delay, duty cycle, and average power consumption. A new back-off time is proposed within CD-ICC, which ensures the best relays cooperate in a distributed manner. The design objective of the CD-ICC is to reduce the end-to-end delay, the duty cycle, and the average power transmission. The simulation and numerical results presented here show that, under general conditions, CD-ICC can enhance network performance compared to direct transmission mode (DTM) IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA and benchmarking. To this end, we have shown that the power saving when using CD-ICC is 37.5% with respect to DTM IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA and 10% with respect to MI-ICC.

Channel Characteristic Aware Privacy Protection Mechanism in WBAN

Advances of information and communication technologies in medical areas have led to the emergence of wireless body area network (WBAN). The high accessibility of media in WBAN can easily lead to the malicious tapping or tampering attacks, which may steal privacy data or inject wrong data. However, existing privacy protection mechanisms in WBAN depend on the third-party key management system and have a complex key exchange process. To enhance user privacy at a low cost and with high flexibility, a channel characteristic aware privacy protection mechanism is proposed for WBAN. In the proposed mechanism, the similarity of RSS is measured to authenticate nodes. The key extraction technique can reduce the cost of the key distribution process. Due to the half duplex communication mode of sensors, the biased random sequences are extracted from the RSS of sensor nodes and coordinator. To reduce the inconsistency, we propose the n-dimension quantification and fuzzy extraction, which can quickly encrypt the transmission information and effectively identify malicious nodes. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism can effectively protect user privacy against tampering and eavesdropping attacks.

Hybrid Multi-Channel MAC Protocol for WBANs with Inter-WBAN Interference Mitigation

Herein, we propose a hybrid multi-channel medium access control (HM-MAC) protocol for wireless body area networks (WBANs) that mitigates inter-WBAN interference significantly. In HM-MAC, a superframe consists of a random access phase and a scheduled access phase. That is, a carrier sensing multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) phase and a time division multiple access (TDMA) phase are included in a superframe. The random access phase allows higher-priority users to transmit data packets with low latency and high reliability. The retransmission of data packets is also performed in the random access phase. The periodic data are transmitted in the scheduled phase, resulting in no contention and high reliability. A channel selection algorithm is also proposed to avoid collision between neighboring WBANs. The HM-MAC protocol allows multiple transmissions simultaneously on different channels, resulting in high throughput and low collision. The sensor nodes update idle channels by listening to the beacon signal; consequently, the sensor nodes can change the working channel to reduce inter-WBAN interference. According to our simulation results, HM-MAC achieves a higher packet delivery ratio and higher throughput with lower energy consumption than the conventional scheme in multi-WBAN scenarios. HM-MAC also causes lower end-to-end delays for higher-priority users.

Design Considerations for a Sub-mW Wireless Medical Body-Area Network Receiver Front End

Wireless medical body-area networks are used to connect sensor nodes that monitor vital parameters. The radio consumes a large portion of the sensor energy budget, and hence its power dissipation should be minimized. The low-noise amplifier (LNA) is an important component of the receiver, and must guarantee low-noise amplification and impedance matching. In this work, an ultra-low-voltage ultra-low-power LNA is proposed that, thanks to the proposed transformer-based gate boosting technique, has a reduced current consumption of only 160 μA and can operate with a supply as low as 0.18 V. The LNA was designed using 40 nm Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology and features a voltage gain of 14 dB, 5.2 dB NF and −8.6 dBm IIP3. This performance is comparable to a prior work by the same authors, but with the minimum supply voltage reduced by a factor of 4x.

Location verification algorithm of wearable sensors for wireless body area networks

BACKGROUND

Knowledge of the location of sensor devices is crucial for many medical applications of wireless body area networks, as wearable sensors are designed to monitor vital signs of a patient while the wearer still has the freedom of movement. However, clinicians or patients can misplace the wearable sensors, thereby causing a mismatch between their physical locations and their correct target positions. An error of more than a few centimeters raises the risk of mistreating patients.

OBJECTIVE

The present study aims to develop a scheme to calculate and detect the position of wearable sensors without beacon nodes.

METHODS

A new scheme was proposed to verify the location of wearable sensors mounted on the patient's body by inferring differences in atmospheric air pressure and received signal strength indication measurements from wearable sensors. Extensive two-sample t tests were performed to validate the proposed scheme.

RESULTS

The proposed scheme could easily recognize a 30-cm horizontal body range and a 65-cm vertical body range to correctly perform sensor localization and limb identification.

CONCLUSIONS

All experiments indicate that the scheme is suitable for identifying wearable sensor positions in an indoor environment.

Link Scheduling Algorithm with Interference Prediction for Multiple Mobile WBANs

As wireless body area networks (WBANs) become a key element in electronic healthcare (e-healthcare) systems, the coexistence of multiple mobile WBANs is becoming an issue. The network performance is negatively affected by the unpredictable movement of the human body. In such an environment, inter-WBAN interference can be caused by the overlapping transmission range of nearby WBANs. We propose a link scheduling algorithm with interference prediction (LSIP) for multiple mobile WBANs, which allows multiple mobile WBANs to transmit at the same time without causing inter-WBAN interference. In the LSIP, a superframe includes the contention access phase using carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) and the scheduled phase using time division multiple access (TDMA) for non-interfering nodes and interfering nodes, respectively. For interference prediction, we define a parameter called interference duration as the duration during which disparate WBANs interfere with each other. The Bayesian model is used to estimate and classify the interference using a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) and the number of neighboring WBANs. The simulation results show that the proposed LSIP algorithm improves the packet delivery ratio and throughput significantly with acceptable delay.

A Survey on Mobility Support in Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have attracted research interests from the community, as more promising healthcare applications have a tendency to employ them as underlying network technology. While taking design issues, such as small size hardware as well as low power computing, into account, a lot of research has been proposed to accomplish the given tasks in WBAN. However, since most of the existing works are basically developed by assuming all nodes in the static state, these schemes therefore cannot be applied in real scenarios where network topology between sensor nodes changes frequently and unexpectedly according to human moving behavior. However, as far as the authors know, there is no survey paper to focus on research challenges for mobility support in WBAN yet. To address this deficiency, in this paper, we present the state-of-the-art approaches and discuss the important features of related to mobility in WBAN. We give an overview of mobility model and categorize the models as individual and group. Furthermore, an overview of networking techniques in the recent literature and summary are compiled for comparison in several aspects. The article also suggests potential directions for future research in the field.

A QoS Optimization Approach in Cognitive Body Area Networks for Healthcare Applications

Wireless body area networks are increasingly featuring cognitive capabilities. This work deals with the emerging concept of cognitive body area networks. In particular, the paper addresses two important issues, namely spectrum sharing and interferences. We propose methods for channel and power allocation. The former builds upon a reinforcement learning mechanism, whereas the latter is based on convex optimization. Furthermore, we also propose a mathematical channel model for off-body communication links in line with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard. Simulation results for a nursing home scenario show that the proposed approach yields the best performance in terms of throughput and QoS for dynamic environments. For example, in a highly demanding scenario our approach can provide throughput up to 7 Mbps, while giving an average of 97.2% of time QoS satisfaction in terms of throughput. Simulation results also show that the power optimization algorithm enables reducing transmission power by approximately 4.5 dBm, thereby sensibly and significantly reducing interference.

A New Energy-Efficient Topology for Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area networks consist of several devices placed on the human body, sensing vital signs and providing remote recognition of health disorders. Low power consumption is crucial in these networks. A new energy-efficient topology is provided in this paper, considering relay and sensor nodes' energy consumption and network maintenance costs. In this topology design, relay nodes, placed on the cloth, are used to help the sensor nodes forwarding data to the sink. Relay nodes' situation is determined such that the relay nodes' energy consumption merges the uniform distribution. Simulation results show that the proposed method increases the lifetime of the network with nearly uniform distribution of the relay nodes' energy consumption. Furthermore, this technique simultaneously reduces network maintenance costs and continuous replacements of the designer clothing. The proposed method also determines the way by which the network traffic is split and multipath routed to the sink.

An Interference-Aware Traffic-Priority-Based Link Scheduling Algorithm for Interference Mitigation in Multiple Wireless Body Area Networks

Currently, wireless body area networks (WBANs) are effectively used for health monitoring services. However, in cases where WBANs are densely deployed, interference among WBANs can cause serious degradation of network performance and reliability. Inter-WBAN interference can be reduced by scheduling the communication links of interfering WBANs. In this paper, we propose an interference-aware traffic-priority-based link scheduling (ITLS) algorithm to overcome inter-WBAN interference in densely deployed WBANs. First, we model a network with multiple WBANs as an interference graph where node-level interference and traffic priority are taken into account. Second, we formulate link scheduling for multiple WBANs as an optimization model where the objective is to maximize the throughput of the entire network while ensuring the traffic priority of sensor nodes. Finally, we propose the ITLS algorithm for multiple WBANs on the basis of the optimization model. High spatial reuse is also achieved in the proposed ITLS algorithm. The proposed ITLS achieves high spatial reuse while considering traffic priority, packet length, and the number of interfered sensor nodes. Our simulation results show that the proposed ITLS significantly increases spatial reuse and network throughput with lower delay by mitigating inter-WBAN interference.

Path loss variation of on-body UWB channel in the frequency bands of IEEE 802.15.6 standard

The wireless body area network (WBAN) has gaining tremendous attention among researchers and academicians for its envisioned applications in healthcare service. Ultra wideband (UWB) radio technology is considered as excellent air interface for communication among body area network devices. Characterisation and modelling of channel parameters are utmost prerequisite for the development of reliable communication system. The path loss of on-body UWB channel for each frequency band defined in IEEE 802.15.6 standard is experimentally determined. The parameters of path loss model are statistically determined by analysing measurement data. Both the line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight channel conditions are considered in the measurement. Variations of parameter values with the size of human body are analysed along with the variation of parameter values with the surrounding environments. It is observed that the parameters of the path loss model vary with the frequency band as well as with the body size and surrounding environment. The derived parameter values are specific to the particular frequency bands of IEEE 802.15.6 standard, which will be useful for the development of efficient UWB WBAN system.

A Survey of MAC Protocols for Cognitive Radio Body Area Networks

The advancement in electronics, wireless communications and integrated circuits has enabled the development of small low-power sensors and actuators that can be placed on, in or around the human body. A wireless body area network (WBAN) can be effectively used to deliver the sensory data to a central server, where it can be monitored, stored and analyzed. For more than a decade, cognitive radio (CR) technology has been widely adopted in wireless networks, as it utilizes the available spectra of licensed, as well as unlicensed bands. A cognitive radio body area network (CRBAN) is a CR-enabled WBAN. Unlike other wireless networks, CRBANs have specific requirements, such as being able to automatically sense their environments and to utilize unused, licensed spectra without interfering with licensed users, but existing protocols cannot fulfill them. In particular, the medium access control (MAC) layer plays a key role in cognitive radio functions, such as channel sensing, resource allocation, spectrum mobility and spectrum sharing. To address various application-specific requirements in CRBANs, several MAC protocols have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we survey MAC protocols for CRBANs. We then compare the different MAC protocols with one another and discuss challenging open issues in the relevant research.

Specification and Verification of Medical Monitoring System Using Petri-nets

To monitor the patient behavior, data are collected from patient's body by a medical monitoring device so as to calculate the output using embedded software. Incorrect calculations may endanger the patient's life if the software fails to meet the patient's requirements. Accordingly, the veracity of the software behavior is a matter of concern in the medicine; moreover, the data collected from the patient's body are fuzzy. Some methods have already dealt with monitoring the medical monitoring devices; however, model based monitoring fuzzy computations of such devices have been addressed less. The present paper aims to present synthesizing a fuzzy Petri-net (FPN) model to verify behavior of a sample medical monitoring device called continuous infusion insulin (INS) because Petri-net (PN) is one of the formal and visual methods to verify the software's behavior. The device is worn by the diabetic patients and then the software calculates the INS dose and makes a decision for injection. The input and output of the infusion INS software are not crisp in the real world; therefore, we present them in fuzzy variables. Afterwards, we use FPN instead of clear PN to model the fuzzy variables. The paper follows three steps to synthesize an FPN to deal with verification of the infusion INS device: (1) Definition of fuzzy variables, (2) definition of fuzzy rules and (3) design of the FPN model to verify the software behavior.

Ultra low power signal oriented approach for wireless health monitoring

In recent years there is growing pressure on the medical sector to reduce costs while maintaining or even improving the quality of care. A potential solution to this problem is real time and/or remote patient monitoring by using mobile devices. To achieve this, medical sensors with wireless communication, computational and energy harvesting capabilities are networked on, or in, the human body forming what is commonly called a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). We present the implementation of a novel Wake Up Receiver (WUR) in the context of standardised wireless protocols, in a signal-oriented WBAN environment and present a novel protocol intended for wireless health monitoring (WhMAC). WhMAC is a TDMA-based protocol with very low power consumption. It utilises WBAN-specific features and a novel ultra low power wake up receiver technology, to achieve flexible and at the same time very low power wireless data transfer of physiological signals. As the main application is in the medical domain, or personal health monitoring, the protocol caters for different types of medical sensors. We define four sensor modes, in which the sensors can transmit data, depending on the sensor type and emergency level. A full power dissipation model is provided for the protocol, with individual hardware and application parameters. Finally, an example application shows the reduction in the power consumption for different data monitoring scenarios.

Security issues in healthcare applications using wireless medical sensor networks: a survey

Healthcare applications are considered as promising fields for wireless sensor networks, where patients can be monitored using wireless medical sensor networks (WMSNs). Current WMSN healthcare research trends focus on patient reliable communication, patient mobility, and energy-efficient routing, as a few examples. However, deploying new technologies in healthcare applications without considering security makes patient privacy vulnerable. Moreover, the physiological data of an individual are highly sensitive. Therefore, security is a paramount requirement of healthcare applications, especially in the case of patient privacy, if the patient has an embarrassing disease. This paper discusses the security and privacy issues in healthcare application using WMSNs. We highlight some popular healthcare projects using wireless medical sensor networks, and discuss their security. Our aim is to instigate discussion on these critical issues since the success of healthcare application depends directly on patient security and privacy, for ethic as well as legal reasons. In addition, we discuss the issues with existing security mechanisms, and sketch out the important security requirements for such applications. In addition, the paper reviews existing schemes that have been recently proposed to provide security solutions in wireless healthcare scenarios. Finally, the paper ends up with a summary of open security research issues that need to be explored for future healthcare applications using WMSNs.