Ubiquitous HealthCare in Wireless Body Area Networks - A Survey

TL;DR

This survey reviews Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) with a focus on Ubiquitous HealthCare (UHC), discussing standards, path loss issues, and simulation results for in-body and on-body communication models.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of WBAN standards, analyzes path loss impacts through simulations, and highlights challenges in UHC applications.

Findings

Path loss significantly affects WBAN communication quality.

Simulations show attenuation and frequency influence path loss.

Standards vary in addressing in-body and on-body communication challenges.

Abstract

Advances in wireless communication, system on chip and low power sensor nodes allowed realization of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). WBAN comprised of tiny sensors, which collect information of patient's vital signs and provide a real time feedback. In addition, WBAN also supports many applications including Ubiquitous HealthCare (UHC), entertainment, gaming, military, etc. UHC is required by elderly people to facilitate them with instant monitoring anywhere they move around. In this paper, different standards used in WBAN were also discussed briefly. Path loss in WBAN and its impact on communication was presented with the help of simulations, which were performed for different models of In-Body communication and different factors (such as, attenuation, frequency, distance etc) influencing path loss in On-Body communications.