On the implant communication and MAC protocols for WBAN

  • Authors:

  • Sana Ullah;Henry Higgins;Bin Shen;Kyung Sup Kwak

  • Affiliations:

  • Graduate School of Telecommunication Engineering, Inha University, South Korea;Zarlink Semiconductor Company, U.K.;Graduate School of Telecommunication Engineering, Inha University, South Korea;Graduate School of Telecommunication Engineering, Inha University, South Korea

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Communication Systems
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Recent advances in micro-electro-mechanical systems, wireless communication, low-power intelligent sensors, and semiconductor technologies have allowed the realization of a wireless body area network (WBAN). A WBAN provides unobtrusive health monitoring for a long period of time with real-time updates to the physician. It is widely used for ubiquitous health care, entertainment, and military applications. The implantable and wearable medical devices have several critical requirements such as power consumption, data rate, size, and low-power medium access control (MAC) protocols. This article consists of two parts: body implant communication, which is concerned with the communication to and from a human body using radio frequency (RF) technology, and WBAN MAC protocols, which presents several low-power MAC protocols for a WBAN with useful guidelines including a case study of IEEE 802.15.4, PB-TDMA, and SMAC protocols. In body implant communication, the in-body RF performance is affected considerably by the implant's depth and different polarization combinations inside the human body as well as by the muscle and fat. We observe best performance at a depth of 3 to 5 cm and not close to the human skin. Furthermore, the study of low-power MAC protocols highlights the most important aspects of developing a novel low-power and reliable MAC protocol for a WBAN. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This paper presents a comprehensive study on the performance of RF communication to-from a human body and low-power MAC protocols for a WBAN including a case study of IEEE 802.15.4, PB-TDMA, and SMAC protocols. It can be seen that in-body RF performance is considerably affected by the implant's depth and different polarization combinations. In addition, the study of low-power MAC protocols highlights the most important aspects of developing a novel and reliable MAC protocol for a WBAN. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.