Body Area Network (BAN) on Jan,2011 @GRIET

Seminar Report
On

BODY AREA NETWORK

(BAN)

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

Requirements for the award of degree of
Bachelor of Technology
in
Computer Science Engineering

By

Nayeemuddin (07241A0585)

Department of Computer Science Engineering

Gokaraju Rangaraju Institute of Engineering and Technology
(Affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University)
Hyderabad .

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AKNOWLEDGEMENT

I express my deep sense of gratitude to our beloved Director Dr. P. S. Raju and Principal Dr. J.
N. Murthy for their valuable guidance and for permitting us to carry out this seminar
successfully.

I would like to take this opportunity to show gratitude towards our HOD Dr. K. Anuradha and
Project guide, Associate Prof. P.Neelima who helped in bringing a seminar to a success. Their
motivation & a source of inspiration to carry out the necessary proceedings for the seminar to be
completed successfully. .

With gratitude,

Mohd Nayeemuddin

07241A0585.

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 Body Area Network (BAN) on Jan,2011 @GRIET

Body Area Networks (BAN)

Abstract
A Body Area Network is formally defined by IEEE 802.15 as, "a communication standard
optimized for low power devices and operation on, in or around the human body (but not limited
to humans) to serve a variety of applications including medical, consumer electronics / personal
entertainment and other" [IEEE 802.15]. In more common terms, a Body Area Network is a
system of devices in close proximity to a persons body that cooperate for the benefit of the user.
This paper discusses several uses of the BAN technology As IEEE mentioned, the most obvious
application of a BAN is in the medical sector, however there are also more recreational uses to
BANs. This paper will discuss the technologies surrounding BANs, as well as several common
applications for BANs. At the end of the paper we will briefly discuss the challenges associated
with BANs and some solutions that are on the horizon.

Keywords: Body Area Networks, Body Sensor Networks, Sensor Networks, Personal Area
Networks, Healthcare Applications, IEEE 802.15

Table of Contents
• 1. Introduction to Body Area Network Technology

• 2. History and Development of BAN

• 3. Applications in Healthcare

o 3.1 Managed Sensor Networks

o 3.2 Autonomous Sensor Networks

o 3.3 Case Study: Cardiac Monitoring

• 4. Challenges associated with BAN

o 4.1 Signal & Path Performance

o 4.2 Usability

• 5. Summary

• A. References

• B. List of Acronyms

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1. Introduction
The field of computer science is constantly evolving to process larger data sets and maintain
higher levels of connectivity. At same time, advances in miniaturization allow for increased
mobility and accessibility. Body Area Networks represent the natural union between connectivity
and miniaturization. A Body Area Network (BAN) is defined formally as a system of devices in
close proximity to a persons body that cooperate for the benefit of the user. The BBC's Jo Twist
gave a more informal definition of Body Area Networks in her article title When technology gets
personal.

Inanimate objects will start to interact with us: we will be surrounded - on streets, in homes, in
appliances, on our bodies and possibly in our heads - by things that "think". Forget local area
networks - these will be body area networks. [Twist04]

Twist makes the possibility of BAN sound more like science fiction than a real possibility, but
several experts in the field expect to see BAN in production for general use by 2010
[Schmidt02]. While this might seem like an aggressive estimate, when put into context with the
history and development of BAN up to this point it becomes a much more achievable goal. In the
paper we will start off introducing the reader to the history and development of BAN. We will
cover the medical heritage of BAN and how the technology grew from a simple generalization of
the concept of Body Sensor Networks (BSN). We will investigate current applications of BAN
with an emphasis on applications in the medical sector. As we cover applications of BAN, we
will spend a portion of the paper identifying some of technical problems facing BAN. Finally,
we will conclude the paper with several solutions currently in development and how they hope to
address and overcome the challenges inherent to BAN.

2. History and Development of BAN

BAN technology is still an emerging technology, and as such it has a very short history.
BAN technology emerges as the natural byproduct of existing sensor network technology
and biomedical engineering. Professor Guang-Zhong Yang was the first person to formally
define the phrase "Body Sensor Network" (BSN) with publication of his book Body
Sensor Networks in 2006. BSN technology represents the lower bound of power and
bandwidth from the BAN use case scenarios. However, BAN technology is quite flexible
and there are many potential uses for BAN technology in addition to BSNs.
Some of the more common use cases for BAN technology are

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• Body Sensor Networks (BSN)

• Sports and Fitness Monitoring

• Wireless Audio

• Mobile Device Integration

• Personal Video Devices

Each of these use cases have unique requirements in terms of bandwidth, latency, power usage,
and signal distance. IEEE 802.15 is the working group for Wireless Personal AreaNetworks
(WPAN) [IEEE 802.15]. The WPAN working group realized the need for a standard for use with
devices inside and around close proximity to the human body. IEEE802.15 established Task
Group #6 to develop the standards for BAN. The BAN task group has drafted a (private)
standard that encompasses a large range of possible devicesIn this way, the task group has given
application and device developers the decision of how to balance data rate and power. Figure 1,
below

Figure 1 - Data Rate vs Power

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As you can see the range of BAN devices can vary greatly in terms of bandwidth and power
consumption. The BAN draft requirements, displayed below, add a common set of requirements
as to ensure that all devices conform to a similar set of behaviors yet still encompass a wide
variety of devices as previously mentioned.

Table 1 - BAN Draft Specifications

[IEEE-BAN-SUMMARY]

Distance 2mstandard
5mspecialuse

2 - 4 nets /
Network Density m2

Network Size Max: 100 devices

network

Power Consumption ~1mW/Mbps

Startup Time
< 100usor
< 10%ofTxslot

Latency (end to end)

10m
s

Network setup time

<1sec
(Per device setup time excludes
network initialization
Future proof Upgradeable, scaleable,
backwards compatible

Allows device driven degradation of services

Very Low, Low, and High duty cycle
modes

BAN Draft Specifications

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3. Applications in Healthcare
As previously mentioned, BANs have grown as a refinement of BSN. As such, BSN remain the
most thought out applications of BAN. In his summary of the BAN task group's findings thus
far, Stefan Drude, a researcher at Phillips, outlined the possible needs the group had found for
the very low BSN devices. BSN devices refine the general requirements by restricting hemselves
to a much smaller range (< 0.01 - 2.00 m). This limited range allows developers to take
advantage of several aspects of the human body. First, the human body itself can become a
channel for short range communication, thus removing the need for a traditional antenna. By
removing the requirement of an additional antenna, the power consumption of BSN devices
shrinks to 0.1 - 1.0 mW. At this low of power, the human body is actually capable of generating
enough excess energy that the devices could "scavenge" the required energy directly from the
host's body, removing the restriction on traditional power sources (like batteries) [IEEE-BAN-
SUMMARY]. BAN technology is not one that is unique to Mr. Drude and the members of the
BAN task group, this exact use case scenario has been thoroughly described by Microsoft in their
patent titled, Method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body
[Microsoft04]. In the following subsections, we will investigate systems that utilize the BSN
technology to accomplish higher level tasks.

3.1 Managed Body Sensor Networks

A managed body sensor network (MBSN) is defined as a system where the third party makes
decisions based the data collected from one or many BSN. We will discuss MobiHealh and
CodeBlue, two managed BSN that are are approaching development of managed BSN from two
different perspectives.

In 2003, two researchers from the University of Twente published a paper entitled "Continuous
monitoring of vital constants for mobile users: the MobiHealth approach." The paper described
the increasing demand of resources placed on the medical community, the rising costs of in-
patient care, and the relative lack of out-patient monitoring. The paper defined "extra-BAN
communication" (EBAN) as communication between a BAN and another network. The solution
paper provided was MobiHealth, a BSN with EBAN connectivity to a 2.5/3G networks
toprovideout-patient monitoring of patients vital signs. Through this infrastructure the
MobiHealth designers were able to provide sensor information to qualified medical
professionals, where multiple patients data could be monitored in an aggregate form.

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MobiHealth is simply one example of a managed BSN. Harvard University's Code Blue
represents another example of BSN currently in the trial stages. Like MobiHealth, CodeBlue
provides an infrastructure for multiple patient monitoring through EBAN communication.
However, CodeBlue takes a more middleware approach to BSN instead of the packaged solution
that MobiHealth provides. By providing a middleware layer, the CodeBlue project allows
developers to specify the modules to use. In this way, CodeBlue is rather flexible at runtime.
Two examples given by the MobiHealth team are emergency response and monitoring limb
movement in stroke patient rehabilitation. Both scenarios have very different requirements both
from a sensor perspective, and a timeliness perspective however the platform is able scale to
accommodate both accordingly.

3.2 Autonomous Body Sensor Networks

Autonomous body sensor networks (ABSN) and MBSN share the same goals, but they
accomplish them in different ways. While a MBSN will relies on reading sensor information and
delivering it to a third party for decision making and intervention, ABSN take a more proactive
approach.

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ABSN introduce actuators in addition to the sensors to allow the BSN to effect change on the
users body. In addition to the actuators, ABSN contain more intelligent sensors that contain
enough intelligence to complete their own tasks independently.

Human++ is a project developed in Belgium that aims to bring ABSN to the mainstream. The
design of Human++ is relatively simple, any node in the mesh-network are able to talk to any
other node in the network. There is a predefined "central" node that is designated for all EBAN
communication. The central node also publishes information on any services that the ABSN
provides external access to. An example ABSN diagram can be seen above in figure 2.

3.3 Case Study: Cardiac Monitoring

The most effective way of describing the current state of BSN is to actually describe a case study
as a representative sample of the progress of BSN. In 2007 Zheng et al. published "A wearable
mobihealth care system supporting real-time diagnosis and alarm," a paper describing a MBSN
using the MobiHealth infrastructure mentioned in the above section. We will briefly cover their
design and implementation. This will help lead into our discussion of the challenges associated
with BAN.

The MobiHealth cardiac monitoring system implemented by Zheng et al. had one goal a few
simple design principles and improvements over older MobiHealth products. The goal of the
system was to "provide long-term continuous monitoring of vital signs for high-risk
cardiovascular patients." The project aimed for tight integration with GPS, which allowed system
dispatchers to know the exact location of patients in distress. The project aimed to have a user
friendly design that minimized the impact the monitoring system had on the patients. They
accomplished this task using a "Wearable Shirt" comprised of smart fabric. The smart fabric was
designed not only to provide sensor information wirelessly with the MBSN, but also to be
resistant to casual wear and cleaning. The final system design was to provide online diagnosis
and three separate levels of alarm on the local device. In this way, the design blended a little bit
of ABSN technology into the system, by allowing the communication node to selectively raise
events to dispatch only on anomalies, increasing the autonomy of the system.

4. Challenges Associated with BAN

BAN technology is still emerging and there are a lot of problems left to solve. Setting aside
ethical issues like privacy, there are still plenty of technical challenges that we must overcome
before BAN will become an effective solution. The BAN draft submissions have defined
solutions for a lot of the basic wireless network protocols, but there is still a large amount of
research that must be done to effectively propagate a signal in and around the human body. The

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last challenge BAN technology faces is actually a problem of Human-Computer Interaction

(HCI) and how to make the technology usable.

4.1 Signal & Path Performance

As one might expect, the signal and path loss inside the human body is drastically different than
the rules in plain space. That said the rules governing signal and path loss remain the same.
Researchers have been able to model signal loss throughout the human body, however the more
interesting research involves using the human body as a transmission medium for electrical
signals. Marc Wegmueller et al. have attempted to model the conductivity and permittivity of
signals sent from one area of the body to another. A full summary of their research is beyond the
scope of this paper, but it is worth noting that in the frequency range of 10 kHz to 1MHz, for
every 5 cm between the transmitter and receiver there is an increase in attenuation by 6 to 9 dB.
Other factors lowered or raised these constants, such as the geometry of the path, the amount of
fat, and the presence of joints.

4.2 Usability
Given the close proximity of users to the BAN technology, the demands on usability are
exceptionally high. In section 3.3 we discussed Zheng et al. and the MobiHealth framework, we
will again refer to the study as they represent some of the most advanced HCI design in the BAN
field. Zheng et al. noted a usability problem with previous systems such as Lifeguard and
AMON, the technology placed artificial restrictions on the user, which made adoption more
difficult. Zheng's group decided to use advances in textile manufacturing to sensing wearable
shirts that would actively monitor the wearer.

5. Summary

Hopefully this paper introduced the reader to the BAN technology. We discussed the history and
development of BSN and how that grew into the more general concept of BAN. We then
introduced two refinements of the BSN concept, ABSN and MBSN. We discussed Human++ a
ABSN flexible platform and the advantages and disadvantages with ABSN technology. We
discussed MobiHealth as a mature example of MBSN technology. We then continued on to take
a look at a case study involving MobiHealth and the monitoring cardiac data. We concluded the
paper by looking at some challenges related to BAN. We covered signal and path loss in the
human body and some of the challenges associated with communication and power within the

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human body. We covered usability and the fusion of cutting edge technology and textiles and
how it is shaping wearable technology.

A. References
URLs:

[CodeBlue06] A managed body sensor network platform in development by Harvard

University.

[Drude06] Drude, A presentation summarizing the discussions thus far in IEEE 802.15
TG6 http://www.ieee802.org/802_tutorials/july06/15-06-0331-00-0ban-tutorial-on-body-
area-networks.ppt

[IEEE-BAN] IEEE 802.15 is the Working Group for WPAN & Task Group 6 is the
group responsible for BANs. http://www.ieee802.org/15/pub/TG6.html

[IEEE-WPAN] IEEE 802.15 is the Working Group for

WPAN.http://www.ieee802.org/15/

Papers:
[Gyselinckx05] Gyselinckx et al., "Human++: Autonomous Wireless Sensors for Body
Area Networks," IEEE 2005 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference

[Konstantas03] Konstantas et al., "Continuous monitoring of vital constants for mobile users:
the MobiHealth’ approach," Proceedings of the 25’ Annual lntemational
Conference of the IEEE EMBS 2003/09/17

[Microsoft04] Microsoft, "Method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using
the human body," Patent No: 6,754,472

[Twist04] Twist, "When technology gets personal," BBC News on Science and
Technology 2004/12/06

[Schmidt02] Schmidt et al., "Body Area Network BAN--a key infrastructure element for
patient-centered medical applications," Biomedizinische Technik. Biomedical
engineering 2002, p365-368

[Wegmueller07] Wegmueller et al., "An Attempt to Model the Human Body as a

Communication Channel," IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 54, No.
10, October 2007

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Books:
[Yang06] Yang,
G. Body Sensor Networks,
MA: Spring Science+Business Media. 2006 .

B. Acronyms
BAN - Body Area Network
BSN - Body Sensor Network
WPAN - Wireless Personal Area Networks
EBAN - Extra Body Area Network
MBSN - Managed Body Sensor Network
ABSN - Autonomous Body Sensor Networks
EEG - Electroencephalography
HCI - Human Computer Interaction
ECG - Electrocardiogram

This and other papers on latest advances in wireless networking are available on line at
http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse574-08/index.html

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