Body Sensor Networks: In the Era of Big Data and Beyond

Abstract

Body sensor networks (BSN) have emerged as an active field of research to connect and operate sensors within, on or at close proximity to the human body. BSN have unique roles in health applications, particularly to support real-time decision making and therapeutic treatments. Nevertheless, challenges remain in designing BSN nodes with antennas that operate efficiently around, ingested or implanted inside the human body, as well as new methods to process the heterogeneous and growing amount of data on-node and in a distributed system for optimized performance and power consumption. As the battery operating time and sensor size are two important factors in determining the usability of BSN nodes, ultralow power transceivers, energy-aware network protocol, data compression, on-node processing, and energy-harvesting techniques are highly demanded to ultimately achieve a self-powered BSN.

A Low Profile Antenna for Millimeter-Wave Body-Centric Applications

“…It affects the antenna performance by detuning frequency and distorting radiation pattern [2], [10]. Although lower frequency ranges offer a wide variety of antenna solutions coping with these performance hurdles employing slot patches [11], embroidered fabrics [12], flexible substrates [13], [14] and substrate integrated waveguides [15] to name few, these challenges remain for the mm-Wave frequency band and need further exploration [16], [17].…”

A Body Sensor Network Simulation Platform for Medical Applications

“…A plataforma é citada em artigos científicos desde 2007 como em [16], [17] e [18], o que demonstra a relevância da plataforma para desenvolvimento de aplicações que demandam RSCH vestíveis.…”

Embroidered Metamaterial Antenna for Optimized Performance on Wearable Applications

“…To optimize the wireless transceivers, reliable body‐worn antennas and systems must be designed and integrated into the e‐garments with good wearability and user comfort, considering the most suitable materials and fabrication techniques . Effects such as bending to follow the body morphological curvatures and the losses produced by the human tissues at radio frequency range must be taken into account . Moreover, low‐profile, lightweight, and robust antenna structures must be manufactured by using industrial processes allowing mass production e‐garments.…”