Context-aware mobility management with WiFi/3G offloading for ehealth WBANs

Abstract

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) relays on IEEE802.15.6 communication standard optimized for low power and short range communication between wireless medical sensors installed on the patient body that gathers health data (e.g. Heartbeat, SPO2, etc.). In addition, every WBAN has a specific component called gateway that permits to send the measured health datas to remote servers. For long range communications, the gateway is equipped with a 3G/WiFi interfaces. 3G interface allows high Quality transmission of health data during mobility. However, the large amount of 3G data traffic transmitting through this network is expected to grow rapidly with the popularity of mobile applications and therefore degrade the overall service. The aim of this paper is a contribution to improve the Quality of Service (QoS) of ehealth applications to assure an efficient and continuous remote monitoring of patients and elderly. For that, we propose a design of a new context-aware mobility management system that is able to take benefit from multiple available access wireless networks (3G and WiFi) to offload smartly specific traffics and maintain the QoS of critical services such as ehealth services.