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Mobile e-health is currently a develop technology where people nowadays can connect to the healthcare centre through medical body area network sensors and mobile devices. Since the data transmitted through the mobile e-health system are extremely sensitive and private, a strong authentication needs to be implemented in the network system. Due to high demand in e-health monitoring system, e-health authentication has become the main concern in the network system since it will transmit patient data to the healthcare server. In addition, the e-health server will store all of the patient vital signs for further analysis by the healthcare personnel. This paper presents a secure and strong identity based authentication protocol for mobile e-health monitoring system using IBE_Trust algorithm and Pulse_Sensor mobile application that will eliminate a lot of security weaknesses in mobile e-health. Through security analysis, we are able to demonstrate that this authentication scheme is more secure and efficient compared to the current e-health authentication protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless body area network plays a vital role in real time healthcare applications for collecting and exchanging sensitive and private information of patient's physical conditions. For the trusted communication between involved entities, an effective authentication technique must be applied to ensure privacy and confidentiality. As the wearable devices are resource-constraint, we propose a lightweight mutually authenticated key-agreement scheme for wireless body area networks using simple XOR and one-way cryptographic hash functions. The proposed scheme enables the wearable sensing device to authenticate the mobile terminal and establish a secret session key. We measure the performance analysis of our proposed scheme with other related schemes regarding computational and communication cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of CISTI (Iberian Conference on Information Systems & Technologies / Conferência Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação) Proceedings is the property of Conferencia Iberica de Sistemas Tecnologia de Informacao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we propose a low computational equalization method for capsule endoscope (CE) system. In CE system, low power transmission and reception is essential because the devices which are transplanted or patched on human body should be small and durable to allow the patient to move freely. Also, the pace of change in channel between CE and receiver is quite variable due to the bowel movements. Therefore, it is necessary to design a low computational equalizer structure for CE system, because there are difficulties in practical application of the conventional equalization due to its high computational complexity. Therefore, we propose an equalization method that focuses on reducing computational complexity. The proposed method adaptively decides the requirement of filter update with simple operation, and we verified that the proposed method improves the performance versus computational complexity trade-offs efficiently compared to the conventional method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In WBAN environment, it is important to achieve energy efficiency of nodes implanting into human body. At the same time, a master also plays an important role in collecting data from nodes and controlling the nodes. By maintaining a master properly, any kinds of situation can be handled. Therefore, low power MAC protocol between a master and a node is highly required appropriately. A MAC protocol proposed in this paper aims to satisfy with these requirements and improve energy consumption rate that tends to grow high as the number of nodes increases. For the efficient and objective evaluation of the proposed MAC protocol, IEEE 802.15.6 MAC is used to compare with it and we show that the advantage of the proposed MAC meet our expectation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN), a neoteric intelligent monitoring system, is envisaged to unleash a wave of personalized, advanced and integrated applications in the field of medical, fitness, sports, entertainment, military and consumer electronics. In WBAN, network longevity is a major challenge due to the limitation in the availability of energy supply and routing protocol plays a key role towards making such networks energy efficient. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient cluster based routing protocol for WBANs, named as energy efficient adaptive routing in wireless body area network (EAR-BAN). Although EAR-BAN is a cluster based routing protocol, it also combines the benefits of direct and multi hop transmission methods, depending on the energy level and spatial information of body nodes, to formalize an energy efficient, adaptive and opportunistic routing. Moreover, its centralized operation reduces the computational burden of body nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN), an intelligent health monitoring system, is introduced advanced and integrated applications in the field of medical, fitness, sports, entertainment, military and consumer electronics. In WBAN, due to the limitation in the availability of energy supply, network longevity is a major challenge. Since 80% of total energy is consumed only because of communication purpose in WBAN, routing protocols play a key role towards making such networks energy efficient. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient cluster-based routing protocol for WBANs, named as semiautonomous adaptive routing in wireless body area network (SEA-BAN). SEA-BAN distributes the energy dissipation evenly among the body nodes and enhances the network lifetime. It is not simply a cluster-based routing protocol; it also combines the benefits of direct transmission and multi-hop transmission methods, depending on the energy level and spatial information of the body nodes, to formalize an adaptive routing. Moreover, its centralized operation reduces the computational burden of body nodes. The comparative analysis of our simulation results show that SEA-BAN enhances the network lifetime by more than 2 times when compared to the multi-hop transmission model and about 8.5 times than the direct transmission model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sensor networks are being researched and deployed in wide range of applications in healthcare. A number of tiny wireless sensors strategically placed on or in the human body, create a wireless body area network (WBAN) that can monitor various vital signs and provide real-time feedback to the medical personnel. In this paper we present the architecture of an ambulatory e-health system including a cluster-tree structured WBAN. In this WBAN, to achieve synchronization, the BAN coordinator and cluster heads (CHs) send beacon frames periodically. It is necessary to schedule the different beacon frames to avoid beacon collisions. We propose a Distributed Access Scheme (DAS) to solve the beacon collision problem. In Distributed Access Scheme, the CHs select their own contention-free time slot (CFTS) of the beacon-only period for sending its beacon frame to nodes in its cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wireless monitoring increased capacity with small portable devices will have benefits in clinical practice. The development of technology has greatly increased the public expectations. Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are expected to reduce the mortality rate caused by chronic diseases. Global predictions show that the share of older population becomes significant. The implementation of the wireless IT technologies, (e.g. WiMAX, 3G, and Wi-Fi Mesh) it has become increasingly attractive for researchers. The major problem for WBANs is the energy consumption; mobility and portability are other considerations for the design; secure real-time communications must be taken into consideration since transmitted data are strictly confidential. Transmitting medical data from body sensors, like ECG signal, require establishment and authentication algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) consists of different tiny physiological wearable sensors to monitor the vital signs of a human body and these sensor nodes transmit in real-time the sensed physiological information to the on-body coordinator or server over a wireless medium. Any radio frequency based wireless device suffers from interference due to the existence of other wireless devices operating in the same frequency band. In this paper we address the problem of interference when multiple WBANs come in the proximity of one another. We propose a TDMA-based solution that creates a common schedule between these WBANs, so that there is seamless communication with their sensors without interference among them, while increasing the cost of latency per node. Also, when these TDMA based WBANs come in the close proximity of one another, they sense the existence of other interfering WBANs. Our solution proposed a scheme that defines the time when to exchange their TDMA schedules. We simulated the proposed solution using NS-3 network simulator and it is observed that there is improvement in the percentage of packet delivery by using the proposed scheme. It is also observed that the increase of speed of WBANs leads to decrease in the percentage of packet delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Emergency data delivery is an important service for medical Wireless Body Area Networks. The successful dissemination of emergency messages can make a huge difference between life and death. The utmost importance of emergency message dissemination requires high reliability while the intermittent nature of alarms requires minimum channel access delay for almost instantaneous delivery. IEEE 802.15.6 beacon enabled networks have defined an adjustable superframe structure that consists of contention-free and contention access periods. Short superframes can satisfy the channel access delay requirements of emergency traffic but penalizes the energy efficiency of all devices in the network. On the other hand, long superframes increase the energy efficiency but the channel access delay is also increased. To balance this contradicting requirement of energy efficiency and Quality of Service, we propose the Medical Emergency Body (MEB) MAC protocol that inserts listening windows dynamically within the contention free periods. The frequency of listening window insertion is determined by the minimum delay tolerance. Furthermore, MEB MAC utilizes idle time slots to insert additional listening window opportunities for emergency traffic, without affecting the network throughput. Our analysis shows that MEB MAC is able to reduce channel access delay for emergency traffic especially for long superframe durations. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the MEB MAC scheme in serving emergency messages in medical body area networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A major cause of energy waste in wireless networks is the interference between nodes working in the same frequency band. This problem appears to be more serious in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) in which energy is the most valuable resource. In order to cope with this issue, power control techniques can be employed. Amongst potential approaches, those with intelligence which allow WBANs to improve their performance by learning from experience can remarkably increase flexibility and adaptability. Besides, approaches with less inter-node negotiation and cooperation are more attractive in WBANBs due to their low overhead and superior scalability. In this paper, we propose a power controller which employs Reinforcement Learning (RL) to enable WBANs to learn from experience and coordinate their power levels in a distributed manner with no inter-node negotiation and cooperation. We evaluate the performance of the proposed power controller with different RL algorithms and compare them to a counterpart approach based on game theory without learning. Their performances are evaluated in terms of optimality of the solution and convergence. We show that the RL-based power controller can trade off throughput for transmission power level and achieve lower energy consumption compared to the counterpart game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ultra-wide band (UWB) is gaining popularity as a physical layer technique for low power and high data rate wireless applications. Currently most wireless body area network (WBAN) platforms are based on narrowband wireless technology such as ZigBee and Bluetooth. This paper presents hardware implementation of impulse radio ultra-wide band (IR-UWB) based sensor nodes. Two major approaches for the development of an IR-UWB sensor node are discussed herein. A UWB receiver implementation using off-the-shelf components is also described. This communication system is used to evaluate the performance of the UWB sensor nodes in terms of bit error rate (BER). A technique for dynamically varying the pulse repetitive frequency (PRF) of the UWB pulses is also discussed in this paper as a further improvement for the suggested sensor designs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Advances in Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) will allow a range of medical applications that will significantly improve the quality of health care. Nevertheless we need to achieve the ease of use and the ease of configuration for the WBAN to be tapped. In this paper we propose a service-oriented (SOA) middleware design for WBAN, as a way to simplify application development by providing abstraction of complex low-level concepts. In the proposed architecture, sensors are coordinated by a gateway node, which in turn retransmits data to a remote central unit and receives WBAN control information and queries from this central unit. Based on predefined thresholds and rules, alarms will be sent from the gateway node to predefined medical staff. We propose employing extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) protocol to ensure real-time event notification and scalable design. The design allows storing sensors data, sensor reconfiguration and resource management. The target user is a patient who needs regular monitoring. WBAN in this case shall increase patient comfort and reduces periodical checkups allowing remote monitoring. We believe that the use of Web Services and standardizing the messages exchanged is a potential solution for interoperability and ease of use and configuration challenges. This will attract more application developers to this field, leading to more innovative applications. We also believe that the use of XMPP protocol will satisfy real-time event notification and scalability design requirements for the middleware. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is aimed at the selection of encoding scheme for low power baseband transceiver IC for Wireless Body Area Network. In WBAN power consumption is necessary thing these days. To provide power consumption various designs are implemented . In this paper a low power baseband Transceiver IC is designed with different coding schemes like Hamming, BCH, LDPC codes and their power consumption are measured and compared. The results show that Low Density Parity Codes (LDPC) yields low power consumption among other coding schemes. The proposed method is simple and proves when applied for selection of effective power management coding scheme in Transceiver IC for WBAN. This coding scheme will be power efficient and also produces perfect error checking among other error checking codes taken in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Developments in ICT have enabled remote connectivity of patients, doctors, and hospitals; hence medical services are no longer confined to hospitals and clinics. The increased mobility in everyday life demands anywhere, anytime, i.e., ubiquitous availability of healthcare services over the internet. The wireless sensor networks are integrated in healthcare solutions effortlessly enabling remote access. The weak / geriatric patients can feed their biological measurements by periodic or aperiodic uploading without visiting any clinic or healthcare center. In case of In-body or On-body sensors a suitable way of clinical measurements can be setup which may be automatic or semi automatic. In case of disasters the physical networks may be knocked out leaving thousands of victims helpless. The wireless sensor networks can be quickly setup by adhoc networking to reach such patients‥ There can be a mix of wireless sensor networks at the patient end using Bluetooth or adhoc network protocol followed by WPAN and WiMAX connectivity leading to fixed networks. Research is being done to address the bandwidth and security issues with minimal battery power and computation requirements while meeting the acceptable security standards. The proposed hierarchical security management scheme uses biometric data, e-Health card or RFID tag for patient or doctor authentication to access healthcare services. The healthcare server issues a session key for one time usage. The upper layers use IPSEC along with the symmetric session key for data transport. In cases of disaster, temporary arrangement can be made by passing the requirement to access the healthcare server to be confirmed at a suitable time later. The security at the lowest level can be further strengthened by including the concept of root level trust embedded in the sensors which are registered with a Trusted Coordinator. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a branch of WSN and an important part of the internet of things (IOT), the wireless body area network (WBAN) was originally created to improve the level of personal health care. And with the development of wireless technologies, the application of the WBAN has expanded to entertainment, leisure, military and other fields. So far, IEEE 802 Task Group has published a new IEEE 802.15.6 standard. The standard defines a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer supporting three Physical (PHY) layers. The three PHY layers are narrowband (NB) PHY, ultra wideband (UWB) PHY and human body communication (HBC) PHY. In this paper, the concept and applications of WBAN are introduced; comparisons between 802.11, 802.15.1, 802.15.4 and 802.15.6 are made; and a brief description about the three PHY layers specifications is given. Some existing questions and challenges the WBAN confronts are also analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wireless monitoring systems are envisioned to reduce healthcare costs and improve the efficiency of treatment of patients in future health care systems. Before transmissions of vital biomedical information over wireless channel can be fully exploited, effective and reliable solutions are required in the medium access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) layers. Furthermore, cross-layer operation of the above-mentioned layers should be optimized to maximize the overall system performance. In this paper, we introduce novel modulation adaptation techniques between MAC and PHY layers of a single sensor node and furthermore, between PHY layers of multiple sensor nodes. By utilizing the proposed techniques, modulation method of IEEE 802.15.4a UWB (ultra wideband) system can be dynamically changed based on, e.g., required Quality of Service (QoS) or channel information. A comparative performance analysis between the original IEEE 802.15.4a UWB system and a system utilizing the proposed methods is presented in a wireless hospital environment. Based on the analysis it can be stated that the overall system performance is increased in terms of throughput and packet delivery ratio and average data packet delay is halved, when the proposed techniques are utilized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Propelled by the need to reduce the cost of caring for the ageing population, we observe an impetus towards enabling remote patient monitoring (mHealth) via low power medical sensor networks. A practical mHealth network consisting of several sensor modules located on the patients body needs to operate over long periods of time without any intervention. This requires efficient hardware and software design which will enable the battery powered sensor devices to operate efficiently and reliably with minimal energy consumption. This paper combines efficient antenna design with a cross layer energy efficient protocol to realize wireless body area networks (WBANs) where the main aim is to maximise network life time. Towards this goal, we demonstrate a high efficiency system design approach where the performance of WBANs are greatly enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a patch antenna for 2.45 GHz ISM (Industrial Scientific Medical) band Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) applications is proposed. To enhance specific absorption rate (SAR), an electrically coupled LC resonator is introduced. The overall dimensions of the proposed antenna are 54 × 45 × 2.4 mm3 and it has a gain of over 1 dBi for the entire 2.45 GHz ISM band. The proposed antenna has an enhanced F/B ratio and specific absorption rate, compared with those of a conventional patch antenna. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In many critical cardiac abnormalities, it is desirable to have a monitoring system that can keep a constant surveillance on the conditions of the heart and its related patterns. This can be very convenient in clinical settings but may not be a possibility for individuals who are not in the hospital and are in their day-to-day activities. Wearable ECG-based systems have been proposed for such situations and can perform such monitoring in real life. However, detecting the abnormality in near-real-time is still a challenge in these systems. Similarly, what information should be relayed to the doctors or other care-givers and how soon this can be achieved is a very hot area of research at present. This paper presents a monitoring system that embeds an intelligent wearable data acquisition system with unique identification algorithms requiring very little computational time and simple threshold based classification. Once this is done, the related information is passed to a gateway system that can communicate the criticality flags as well as the actual ECG waveform data to the pre-defined data node that connects it to the doctor and/or other clinical representatives. We have used Android based cellphone as the gateway. The morphological features of mobile devices and their use in our daily lives create an opportunity to connect medical informatics systems with the main stream. The presented system focuses on intelligent health monitoring with possible wearable application for long-term monitoring and updating in real-time about the patient's ECG conditions to the physician. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) comprises a number of tiny devices implanted in/on the body that sample physiological signals of the human body and send them to a coordinator node for medical or other purposes. As these miniature devices run on built-in batteries, energy is the most valuable resource in WBANs. This makes signal interference between neighboring WBANs a serious threat because it causes energy waste in these systems. To mitigate this internetwork interference, we propose a dynamic power control mechanism in WBANs which employs reinforcement learning (RL) to learn from experience and improve its performance. This paper presents guidelines in designing efficient RL power controllers in WBANs and provides an analysis of the effect of the reward function, discount factor, learning rate and eligibility trace parameter where the main performance criteria used are convergence and solution optimality in terms of throughput and energy consumption per bit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the major issues in Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks (WBASNs) is efficient localization. There are various techniques for indoor and outdoor environments to locate a person. This study evaluating and compares performance of optimization schemes in indoor environments for optimal placement of wireless sensors, where patients can perform their daily activities. In indoor environments, the performance comparison between Distance Vector-Hop algorithm, Ring Overlapping Based on Comparison Received Signal Strength Indicator (ROCRSSI), Particle filtering and Kalman filtering based location tracking techniques, in terms of localization accuracy is estimated. Results show that particle filtering outperforms all. GPS and several techniques based on GSM location tracking schemes are proposed for outdoor environments. Hidden Markov GSM based location tracking scheme efficiently performs among all, in terms of location accuracy and computational overheads. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent advances in wireless communications, system on chip and low power sensor nodes allow realization of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). WBANs comprise of tiny sensors, which collect information of a patient's vital signs and provide a real time feedback. In addition, WBANs also support many applications including ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, gaming, military, etc. Ubiquitous healthcare is required by elderly people to facilitate them with instant monitoring anywhere they move around. In this paper, we provide a survey on different architectures used in WBANs for ubiquitous healthcare monitoring. Different standards and devices used in these architectures are also discussed in this paper. Finally, path loss in WBANs and its impact on communication is presented with the help of simulations performed for different models of In-Body communication and different factors (such as, attenuation, frequency, distance etc) influencing path loss in On-Body communications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wireless body area network (WBAN) is an emerging research field particularly in the area of remote health monitoring. For the simple reason that health data are private and sensitive information, securing access and data transmission within a WBAN becomes a critical need. Using certificates requires deploying Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Certification Authorities (CA) and their management (control the generation, transmission and revocation) is a cumbersome task unlike identity-based cryptography concept. Considering the heterogeneity between participating tiers in the network, we propose in this paper a hybrid authentication and key agreement scheme where symmetric cryptography is used in sensor/actuator nodes while identity-based cryptography concept is used between smartphone (MN) and the storage site (SS). We present two protocols to authenticate and establish pairwise and group keys between all tiers and to provide a public and private keys for MNs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ability to achieve a reliable and optimal design of a WBAN communication system relies largely on a thorough understanding of signal propagation through and around the complex human body as a medium, which differs significantly from one person to another. Hence, it is necessary to model the human body of interest in its corresponding environment to have a successful, reliable, and optimal WBAN. In this paper, we provide a path-loss model of the propagation channel medium between a transmitter antenna and a receiver antenna based on multiple experimental measurements. A number of transmit antennas (Tx) are situated on a wearable sensor nodes and spread on different major parts of the human body, while the receiver antenna (Rx) is kept on a sink node in constant proximity to the human body. The Tx and Rx devices communicate using ZigBee technology on 2.45 GHz band. Current literature addressed channel analysis at 2.45GHz around the surface of the body assuming simplified simulation setup or/and overlooking the impact of the indoor office environment. Our contribution in this paper is to investigate 2.45GHz Zigbee statistical path-loss model thoroughly based on realistic setup and using off-the-shelf devices in an indoor office environment. Channel characteristics from the experimental measurements are compared against representative semi-empirical path loss and log-normal shadowing models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The advances in Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), battery life, low powered communication standards, more capable processing units, and hybrid communication have cemented the use of mobile Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) in medical informatics. Although the MEMS were used in medical informatics solutions but they were highly localized, rigged, non-cooperative, and particularly non extendable. The interconnectivity of various network interfaces is the main driving force on the modern technology boom. The morphological features of mobile devices and their use in our daily lives create an opportunity to connect medical informatics systems with the main stream. It promise unobtrusive ambulatory health monitoring for a long period of time and provide real-time updates of the patient's status to the physician. When integrated with the WBAN, the mobile devices play the role of localized data diffusion, classification, and broadcast center. In this paper, the criticality of this ‘single point of failure’ is discussed. Often the untapped flow of data to the mobile device can lead to crashing of the network. A computational model is devised in order to pre estimate the device resource availability matrix and data flow management without creating the denial of service. The speed mismatch due to resource binding violation on the part of the hand held device can be reported and capped before the data loss heeds un noticed. The techniques proposed are analyzed and tested on a test bed, specifically designed for monitoring remote patient vitals. The results obtained show marked improvement from the methods proposed in the contemporary systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose group Manchester code (GM) modulation scheme for medical in-body wireless body area network (WBAN) systems. In IEEE, the WBAN system is assigned as 802.15. Task Group 6 (TG6), and the related standardization is being progressed. Recently, in this Group, group pulse position modulation (GPPM), which can obtain data rate increase by grouping pulse position modulation (PPM) symbols, is proposed as a new modulation scheme for low-power operation of WBAN system. However, the conventional method suffers from BER performance degradation due to the absence of gray coding and its demodulation characteristics. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a modified GM scheme which groups Manchester code instead of PPM. In the proposed GM scheme, a low-complexity maximum likelihood (ML) demodulation method is employed in order to maximize the BER performances. Also, log likelihood ratio (LLR) decision method is proposed to employ the Turbo code as forward error correction (FEC). Finally, we verified that the proposed method has a good performance and is an appropriate scheme for in-body WBAN system through extensive performance evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In wireless sleep apnoea monitoring system, signal propagation paths may be affected by fading because of reflection, diffraction, energy absorption, shadowing by the body, patients mobility and the surrounding environment. MIMO has emerged as a significant technique to combat such fading and to provide enhanced channel capacity. The performance of MIMO depends on correlation coefficient and the lower correlation coefficient provides better performance. In this research, the patch antenna suitable for WBAN system has been designed and spatial diversity technique has been applied on various WBAN channels to measure the correlation coefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we analyze performance of low power consumption modulation scheme such as Phase Shift Position Modulation(PSPM), Phase Silence Shift Keying(PSSK) and Quadrature Amplitude Position Modulation(QAPM) using OFDM transmission in AWGN channel. A PSPM, PSSK and QAPM modulation scheme are decrease in bandwidth efficiency but improved power efficiency than existing PSK and QAM. These modulation schemes can achieve power efficiency because every symbol of modulations has a zero-envelope period like PPM techniques. The OFDM system is high bandwidth efficiency than single carrier system. In this paper, we compare PSPM, PSSK and QAPM modulation using OFDM transmission regard to BER performance, throughput and PAPR. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a small size monopole antenna for WBAN application is presented. The proposed wearable antenna is designed for 2.45GHz and 5.8GHz. In both simulated and tested results, the band width of 200MHz (8%) centered at 2.45GHz and 1GHz (17%) centered at 5.8GHz are performed. Those bandwidths are large enough to meet the requirements of WBAN, respectively. The desired omni-directional pattern required for transmission with other wearable devices located across the body is also performed. The antenna gain is measured as about 1dBi and 4dBi for the lower and higher resonant frequency, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The problem of insufficiency of funds for social activities and health is relevant not only for Bulgaria but also for almost all European countries. In 2007 with the decision of the European Parliament starts the programme 'Ambient Assisted Living -AAL'. The goal is by applying the achievements in the information and communication technologies to improve the quality of life and the independence of elderly and disabled people, and to reduce the costs of health and social care. As a result started several research projects to create assistive systems for objectoriented groups with different problems -- limited mobility, dementia, Parkinson, etc. The technologies applied for AAL are user-centric, i.e. oriented towards the needs and capabilities of the assisted person (AP). The AAL system includes sensors and actuators (for recording and control of parameters and processes at the AP home), which are elements of wireless personal network (WPAN). An approach to WPAN realization analogously to designing software in object-oriented environment is presented in this paper. With that end in view, only the type and the location of sensors and actuators will be assigned; the time parameters will be adjusted. The expected results may demonstrate the feasibility and cost effectiveness of the proposed concept using standard and easy for reconfiguration modules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A MIMO antenna with decoupling network for headset applications is proposed. The performance of the antenna is investigated when the antenna is placed on a head phantom. The antenna consists of two monopole type radiators and a decoupling network that improves the isolation between two radiators. The antenna on the human head phantom covers ISM band and the isolation exceeds 20 dB. Because the ECC is lower than 0.1 over the ISM band, the proposed antenna is a good candidate for diversity application. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, a shorted helix antenna for an ingestible medical device applications is proposed. To investigate the performance of the antenna in an in-body environment, the antenna in the human-equivalent flat phantom is analyzed through simulation and measurement. The antenna is characteristic of wideband (386 ∼ 409 MHz) covering MICS band. Radiation patterns have quasi-omnidirectional characteristic. In various organs, the antenna is characteristic not only of the return loss covering MICS band but also of quasi-omnidirectional radiation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a UWB MIMO antenna for an on-body application is proposed and antenna performance with body effect and the impact on the human body are investigated. The proposed MIMO antenna is composed of an UWB antenna above ground plane and an additional isolator located between the two antennas to enhance the isolation characteristic. A Simulation is performed to analyze the effect of the human body on the antenna performance when the human body is located near the antenna. According to the simulated result, the diversity performance of the proposed antenna is good since the Envelope Correlation Coefficient(ECC) remains below 0.1 over the UWB lower band. The simulated SAR value of antenna is 0.92 W/kg, when 1 mW input power is engaged. This value satisfies the FCC guideline which states that the 1-g average SAR should be lower than 1.6 W/kg. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) which is the network around a human body, Ultra Wide Band (UWB) communication is one of the candidates for a realizing a high transmission speed. However, the antenna characteristics can be degraded due to influence of the human body. Also, broadband antennas which cover the bandwidth of UWB are too large for WBAN's antennas in general. In this paper, an antenna with a slot of a bow-tie shape focused and downsizing technique discussed. In comparison with the basic shape, it downsized by approximately 10% in the y-direction, 68% in the z-direction. And, average Front to Back ratio of 1.95dB is obtained in band from 4.7 to 10.6GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) represent one of the most promising approaches for improving the quality of life, allowing remote patient monitoring and other healthcare applications. In such networks, traffic routing plays an important role together with the positioning of relay nodes, which collect the information from biosensors and send it towards the sinks. This work investigates the optimal design of wireless body area networks by studying the joint data routing and relay positioning problem in a WBAN, in order to increase the network lifetime. To this end, we propose an integer linear programming model which optimizes the number and location of relays to be deployed and the data routing towards the sinks, minimizing both the network installation cost and the energy consumed by wireless sensors and relays. We solve the proposed model in realistic WBAN scenarios, and discuss the effect of different parameters on the characteristics of the planned networks. Numerical results demonstrate that our model can design energy-efficient and cost-effective wireless body area networks in a very short computing time, thus representing an interesting framework for the WBAN planning problem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]