Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN)

Wireless Body Area Network or WBAN is a kind of wireless connected wearable computing device which was invented with the motive of transmitting the data to a Wireless LAN or over the internet. In recent times, WBAN creates emerging interest as it is offering real-time applications in various fields such as sports, entertainment, telemedicine, military training, and more benefits for chronic diseases to create easier detection and treatment methods for patients. Especially, the WBAN network is a wireless device designed to secure personal health. As WBAN devices are wearable devices, they can be implanted inside or outside of the human body. The working operation of the WBAN device is connecting various medical sensors and devices located inside or outside of the human body. The device has been developed from the concept of WPAN or Wireless Personal Area Network which can be used in a limited range.

Wireless Body Area Network is mainly useful for professionals who served in medical lines and patients too. With the use of this network, the health condition of a patient can be monitored without any hassles out. WBAN has various nodes that are termed as independent nodes that give assistance to find out the path for transmission of data by connecting to the internet at a remote location. WBAN has a feature of extending to the wider range and the devices inside the body connecting to the internet based on WPAN as a gateway. By using the advanced WBAN devices, the patients can easily get to know the status of their health at any time from their locations without visiting the medical care center so that it will save both time and cost as well.

Nodes of WBAN
WBAN has two types of nodes such as sensor and gateway nodes. Sensor nodes usually collect and save the updates from the human body whereas gateway nodes help to connect the sensor nodes to the external server or any other communication channel network like WLAN, mobile network or hospital network. The concerned patient can store the updates of his or her health on the mobile device.

Architecture and Working of WBAN
WBAN has been improved for providing efficient services in medical systems. As WBAN devices embedded with tiny sensor nodes, they can easily collect the data from the human body and transfer the updated information to the medical servers in the hospital. The information can be useful to monitor the health and assess the diagnosis by a doctor or medical professional. The transmission of data in the network should be secured because it uses the patient’s personal data that will provide a higher range of healthcare facilities. Relevantly, it uses cryptographic keys for secure communication in order to prevent the wrong detection which leads to risky conditions to human life.

WBAN is totally different from WSN that means the sensor nodes are having limited power and memory. For providing security, WBAN uses a plug-n-play scheme which is more reliable according to the network topology change. But, the scheme may lead to the outflow of the information. To mitigate this issue, the MAC layer is incorporated at the hardware setup that allows capturing the data by sensor nodes from the human body.

WBAN Applications
Wireless Body Area Network has limited applications but it should be involved deep research and necessity to increase the range of applications. The applications of WBAN included as follows (Devsaran, 2019):
Remote Patient Monitoring
As already discussed WBAN is useful for medical lines, it has essential applications such as telemedicine and remote patient monitoring. WBAN devices have been made possible to deliver the medical services to the concerned patients who are in distant locations. It will create a smart health system through the body sensors which gather the data from sensors and transfer to the physicians for processing the diagnosis.
Rehabilitation
WBAN has been provided with proper rehabilitation and treatment methods for the patients in order to get independent solutions. Specifically, it is offering essential benefits like data fusion, sensor diversification, home-based rehabilitation, and real-time feedback in the sense that it allows getting consistent updates of bodily activities (Negra, Jemili, & Belghith, 2016).
Biofeedback
Through the mechanism of biofeedback, patients can able to look after their health by monitoring the valuable parameters like blood pressure, ECG, temperature, etc. It will help to take care and maintain good health constantly by following the preventions and prescriptions suggested by physician (Shankar & Tomar, 2016).
Living Assistance
Wireless Body Area Network is giving assistance for elderly and disabled people through the live tracking of health parameters. It ensures the quality of life and saves costs based on these wireless devices and technologies. It will also help to estimate the patient’s condition appropriately (Arefin, Ali, & Haque, 2017).
In addition to these, WBAN devices have major applications in the sports field that will provide real-time updates of sports person’s health.