Data Communication and Network Routing in Body-Area-Networking

Data Communication and Network Routing
Body-Area-Networking

Introduction
Body area network is a network technology that is growing rapidly in the world of computers. It
plays a very important role especially in the field of health. It aids in monitoring crucial signs of
patients as well as monitoring the history of the patient in the routine activities of life to offer the
patients with proper and accurate treatment and medication. The main aim of the technology is
reduction in the hospital loads and offer adequate facility of healthcare remotely through the use
of MICS (medical implant communication system) as well as WMTS (wireless medical
telemetry system). Monitoring patients as carried out using WBAN (wireless body area network)
because it is not practical to observe the patients using sensors or devices that are connected
through a wire in the patient’s natural environment. WBAN is used to perform the daily routine
through contented and unobtrusive way. The technology offers cheap, easy and quick respondent
history of the patient.
Architecture
Wireless body area network’s design comprises of unique purpose sensor which can freely link
with several appliances and sensors found outside as well as inside the human body.
The figure below illustrates a simple wireless body area network architecture whereby it
comprises of various sections.
Figure 1.
In the figure above, the infrastructure of the network is categorized into four sections. The first
category comprises of the wireless body area network section which includes of a number of

sensor nodes. The nodes uses nodes of low-power and are also cheap and contain physiological
and inertial sensors strategically located on the body of the human. The sensors are used for
monitoring the movement, crucial factors like the blood pressure, ECG, the rate of the heart and
the surrounding environment continuously. There is a large number of systems of monitoring
that are already in use based on connections that area wireless. Use of wired connections in
monitoring systems could be hectic as when a person wears the connection as it would limit the
person’s mobility. Therefore, use of wireless body area network would be very effective in the
system of healthcare in situations whereby continuous monitoring is required as well as mobility.
The section that follows comprises of the node of coordination whereby all the sensor nodes are
connected directly with a node of coordination referred to as Central Control Unit, CCU. The
CCU collects all the data contained in the sensor nodes and delivers it to the subsequent section.
However, when it comes to monitoring the activities of the human body, no such technology that
is wireless, is fixed for targeting wireless body area network. Majority of the wireless
technologies that are used for systems of medical monitoring are WiFi, 3G, WLAN, GSM,
WPAN (ZigBee, Bluetooth) and 4G (Khan and Tuce, 2010). The listed technologies are mainly
cover the communication in short distances apart from the Cellular network standard.
The third part comprises of the wireless body area network communication that acts as a gateway
for transferring data to the destination. For a remote station to transfer information to a cellular
network, a mobile node may be used as a gateway and send the message through the use of
GSM/3G/4G. On the other hand, a PC or a router may be used as the remote node to
communicate through email or other services using Ethernet as illustrated in the figure below.
The final part is comprised of a control center that comprises of the end node devices like the pc
used in monitoring, mobile phone for messaging and server and email used in storing
information in the database.