%0 Journal Article
%T A Review of Wireless Body Area Networks for Medical Applications
%A Sana ULLAH
%A Pervez KHAN
%A Niamat ULLAH
%A Shahnaz SALEEM
%A Henry HIGGINS
%A Kyung Sup KWAK
%J Int'l J. of Communications, Network and System Sciences
%P 797-803
%@ 1913-3723
%D 2009
%I Scientific Research Publishing
%R 10.4236/ijcns.2009.28093
%X Recent advances in Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, integrated circuits, and wireless communication have allowed the realization of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). WBANs promise unobtrusive ambulatory health monitoring for a long period of time, and provide real-time updates of the patient¡¯s status to the physician. They are widely used for ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, and military applications. This paper reviews the key aspects of WBANs for numerous applications. We present a WBAN infrastructure that provides solutions to on-demand, emergency, and normal traffic. We further discuss in-body antenna design and low-power MAC protocol for a WBAN. In addition, we briefly outline some of the WBAN applications with examples. Our discussion realizes a need for new power-efficient solu-tions towards in-body and on-body sensor networks.
%K Wireless Body Area Networks
%K Low Power MAC
%K Body Sensor Networks
%K BSN
%K WBAN
%U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=830