Body Area Network
Wireless Body Area Network ( WBAN ) is a specialized network concept within the framework of the IEEE 802.15 standard ( WPAN , Wireless Personal Area Network ) for a single person as a carrier of communication devices. With this concept, a connection of medical sensors and actuators worn on the body is achieved, whereby only the devices of exactly one wearer are included in a network. Actuators must be approved according to the rules for medical devices.
Transmission method
Due to the short range and the low penetration of the body, the transmission methods used mostly use microwaves 2.45 GHz at low transmission powers of up to 10 mW, which can be used completely safely. The most common transmission method relies on the Bluetooth standards from version 2.1. Other transmission methods are used in sports. The reason was initially the high battery consumption and the slow connection establishment with Bluetooth, which only offers a new, connectionless performance feature that is competitive with the other methods from version V4.0 Low Energy.
history
Initially, the wired Body Area Network (BAN) was designed for data acquisition in telemedicine in health care and for related wellness applications. The wireless further development of the Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) as an ad-hoc network for data acquisition close to the body corresponds in function to the BAN with the difference that the body sensors work wirelessly as radio sensors. In particular, the administrative effort is low and the components are therefore easy to use even for laypeople.
The basics and first steps of a BAN, which uses the capacitive near field of the skin for data transmission, were researched and published in 1995 at the MIT Media Lab by Thomas G. Zimmermann , David Allport and Neil Gershenfeld , among others .
For use in the medical field, further developments of this network concept have taken place at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft since 1998, for example . As a result, a first, functional prototype for the Body Area Network was created in 2001. This was presented to the public at MEDICA 2001 as well as MEDTEC 2002 and CeBIT 2002.
From 2004 to 2006, a system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution was developed in the BASUMA project funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology .
A further development has been carried out since February 2005 by the Japanese NTT under the name RedTacton.
advantages
The most commonly used frequency around 2.45 GHz is selected for use on the human body. The transmission power is low. The resulting range is about one meter - exactly the range of a body-hugging network.
- international license for radio transmission
- low transmission power with low penetration of the body
- Self-configuring, largely administration-free wireless network
- miniaturized design
- minimal power consumption and low interference potential
- faster setup of the transmission, connectionless transmission possible
- standardized medical device communication
- great robustness in motion and easy handling for laypeople
The data transmission channel is determined by the base station . It also decides when to change channels , e.g. B. if a transmission was disturbed several times in a row.
Encryption mechanisms are provided for the transmission of private and confidential data .
Applications
The possible uses of BANs or WBANs are very diverse. So these z. B. used for recording body functions such as blood pressure and pulse , EEG and EKG . Monitoring of existing implants is also one of the areas of application. The recorded values can be used for a wide variety of services, such as the treatment of chronic diseases, medical diagnoses, patient monitoring and the monitoring of biometric data.
The applications of a Body Area Network or Body Sensor Network are versatile:
- Installation in radio hearing aids
- Integration in heart rate monitor while jogging
- Communication in airplanes or spaceships
- Communication in the hospital
- Patient monitoring at home (post-operative care)
- Monitoring of infants
- Investigation in sleep laboratories
- Networking of components of portable consumer electronics
In addition to audio and video data, the sensors attached to the body, which are mainly used for medical applications, usually measure some of the following vital signs :
Individual evidence
- ^ Neil Gershenfeld, Thomas G. Zimmerman and David Allport, Non-Contact System for Sensing and Signaling by Externally Induced Intra-Body Currents, US Patent Application, (May 8, 1995).
- ^ Thomas G. Zimmerman, Joshua R. Smith, Joseph A. Paradiso, David Allport, Neil Gershenfeld: Applying Electric Field Sensing to Human-Computer Interfaces. (PDF) MIT Media Laboratory - Physics and Media Group, May 1995, accessed September 4, 2008 .
- ↑ Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (Ed.): An implantable telemetry system for impedance spectroscopy . Munich 1998.
- ↑ Page of the Fraunhofer Institute ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ BASUMA project
- ↑ press release
