A Study on Requirements, Challenges and Applications of Wireless Body Area Network

Abstract

Body Area Network (BAN) or Body Sensor Network (BSN) has became the most emerged research technology because of the recent advancement in wireless sensor networks. This has also provided many opportunities for researchers on wireless networks around the body. A BAN allows remote health monitoring of patients. The caregivers can monitor their patient’s health status without disrupting their normal activities. This monitoring is possible by deploying of the low-power sensor nodes on human body as implanting or worn. This paper presents a description of BSNs, requirements, challenges and various applications associated with BAN. The most important requirement and challenges faced by BSN are Energy, quality of service and routing. These factors are analyzed in detail in this paper. An investigation of existing challenges and requirements with its solutions and technologies at physical, MAC, network, transport, and application layers also done in this paper. At the end, open research issues and challenges for each layer are discussed to be addressed in further research.