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Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications
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Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Sensor Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2017) | Viewed by 228882

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Giancarlo Fortino

grade E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Computer Engineering, DIMES-Department of Informatics, Modeling, Electronics, and Systems, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, Italy
Interests: body area networks; Internet of Things; agent-based computing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Hassan Ghasemzadeh

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA
Interests: embedded systems; pervasive computing; smart health; cyber physical systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Wenfeng Li

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Department of Logistics Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China
Interests: body area networks; internet of things; logistics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Yin Zhang

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
School of Information and Communication Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Interests: mobile computing; edge intelligence; cognitive wireless communications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Luca Benini

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Information Engineering, University of Bologna, Italy
Interests: body sensor networks; networks-on-chip; ambient intelligence

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A wireless body sensor network (or simply BSN) is a networked collection of wearable (programmable) sensor nodes that can communicate among themselves and also with other smart devices and other ambient sensors. The sensor nodes have computation, storage, wireless transmission, and sensing capabilities. Common physiological sensed signals/data include body motion, skin temperature, heart rate, skin conductivity, brain and muscle activities, and biomarkers. To perform both online and offline analyses of data streams, BSNs were recently assisted by cloud computing-based infrastructures providing flexible storage and scalable processing. A wide range of application scenarios is enabled by BSN technologies, even though m-Health applications probably represent the most emblematic and diffused example. Specifically, BSN-based systems can be used to directly monitor several vital signs continuously and non-invasively, as tiny wireless sensors are placed on the skin and sometimes integrated with the garments. Such signals can allow inferring the onset or progression of different diseases at an early stage or supporting rehabilitation. Moreover, BSNs are strategic enablers for many other application domains such as: e-Sport, e-Fitness, e-Wellness, and e-Social. However, many issues still exist in the BSN research area from several points of view: hardware (e.g., new biosensor boards), communications (e.g. more efficient MAC-level protocols), distributed software systems (e.g., collaborative smartphone- and/or BSN-based platforms), and novel applications including advanced data processing algorithms.

In this Special Issue we aim at dealing with the aforementioned issues and, in particular, we are mainly interested in the following topics:

  • Novel biosensor architectures
  • Energy-efficient protocols for body sensor networks
  • Frameworks for context-aware body sensor networks
  • Cloud-assisted body sensor networks
  • Virtualization of wearable devices and systems
  • Information fusion algorithms for body sensor networks data
  • Body sensor networks for emotion-aware computing and systems
  • Activity recognition based on body sensor networks
  • Interconnection, integration, interoperability issues
  • Smart body area networks and Internet of Things
  • Applications for BSNs in strategic domains (e.g. healthcare, sport/fitness, logistics, manufacturing, emergency response, military, etc.)

Prof. Giancarlo Fortino
Guest Editor

Dr. Hassan Gasemzadeh
Prof. Wenfeng Li
Dr. Yin Zhang
Prof. Luca Benini
Co-Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Body Area Networks
  • Multi-sensor Fusion Algorithms
  • Distributed Architectures
  • Emotion-Aware Wearable Systems
  • Bio-Sensors

Published Papers (28 papers)

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5252 KiB  
Article
Developing Fine-Grained Actigraphies for Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients from a Single Accelerometer Using Machine Learning
by Javier Andreu-Perez, Luis Garcia-Gancedo, Jonathan McKinnell, Anniek Van der Drift, Adam Powell, Valentin Hamy, Thomas Keller and Guang-Zhong Yang
Sensors 2017, 17(9), 2113; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17092113 - 14 Sep 2017
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 8836
Abstract
In addition to routine clinical examination, unobtrusive and physical monitoring of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients provides an important source of information to enable understanding the impact of the disease on quality of life. Besides an increase in sedentary behaviour, pain in RA can [...] Read more.
In addition to routine clinical examination, unobtrusive and physical monitoring of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients provides an important source of information to enable understanding the impact of the disease on quality of life. Besides an increase in sedentary behaviour, pain in RA can negatively impact simple physical activities such as getting out of bed and standing up from a chair. The objective of this work is to develop a method that can generate fine-grained actigraphies to capture the impact of the disease on the daily activities of patients. A processing methodology is presented to automatically tag activity accelerometer data from a cohort of moderate-to-severe RA patients. A study of procesing methods based on machine learning and deep learning is provided. Thirty subjects, 10 RA patients and 20 healthy control subjects, were recruited in the study. A single tri-axial accelerometer was attached to the position of the fifth lumbar vertebra (L5) of each subject with a tag prediction granularity of 3 s. The proposed method is capable of handling unbalanced datasets from tagged data while accounting for long-duration activities such as sitting and lying, as well as short transitions such as sit-to-stand or lying-to-sit. The methodology also includes a novel mechanism for automatically applying a threshold to predictions by their confidence levels, in addition to a logical filter to correct for infeasible sequences of activities. Performance tests showed that the method was able to achieve around 95% accuracy and 81% F-score. The produced actigraphies can be helpful to generate objective RA disease-specific markers of patient mobility in-between clinical site visits. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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451 KiB  
Article
A Lifetime Maximization Relay Selection Scheme in Wireless Body Area Networks
by Yu Zhang, Bing Zhang and Shi Zhang
Sensors 2017, 17(6), 1267; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17061267 - 02 Jun 2017
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 5408
Abstract
Network Lifetime is one of the most important metrics in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). In this paper, a relay selection scheme is proposed under the topology constrains specified in the IEEE 802.15.6 standard to maximize the lifetime of WBANs through formulating and [...] Read more.
Network Lifetime is one of the most important metrics in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). In this paper, a relay selection scheme is proposed under the topology constrains specified in the IEEE 802.15.6 standard to maximize the lifetime of WBANs through formulating and solving an optimization problem where relay selection of each node acts as optimization variable. Considering the diversity of the sensor nodes in WBANs, the optimization problem takes not only energy consumption rate but also energy difference among sensor nodes into account to improve the network lifetime performance. Since it is Non-deterministic Polynomial-hard (NP-hard) and intractable, a heuristic solution is then designed to rapidly address the optimization. The simulation results indicate that the proposed relay selection scheme has better performance in network lifetime compared with existing algorithms and that the heuristic solution has low time complexity with only a negligible performance degradation gap from optimal value. Furthermore, we also conduct simulations based on a general WBAN model to comprehensively illustrate the advantages of the proposed algorithm. At the end of the evaluation, we validate the feasibility of our proposed scheme via an implementation discussion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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7909 KiB  
Article
FM-UWB: Towards a Robust, Low-Power Radio for Body Area Networks
by Vladimir Kopta, John Farserotu and Christian Enz
Sensors 2017, 17(5), 1043; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051043 - 06 May 2017
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 6613
Abstract
The Frequency Modulated Ultra-Wideband (FM-UWB) is known as a low-power, low-complexity modulation scheme targeting low to moderate data rates in applications such as wireless body area networks. In this paper, a thorough review of all FM-UWB receivers and transmitters reported in literature is [...] Read more.
The Frequency Modulated Ultra-Wideband (FM-UWB) is known as a low-power, low-complexity modulation scheme targeting low to moderate data rates in applications such as wireless body area networks. In this paper, a thorough review of all FM-UWB receivers and transmitters reported in literature is presented. The emphasis is on trends in power reduction that exhibit an improvement by a factor 20 over the past eight years, showing the high potential of FM-UWB. The main architectural and circuit techniques that have led to this improvement are highlighted. Seldom explored potential of using higher data rates and more complex modulations is demonstrated as a way to increase energy efficiency of FM-UWB. Multi-user communication over a single Radio Frequency (RF) channel is explored in more depth and multi-channel transmission is proposed as an extension of standard FM-UWB. The two techniques provide means of decreasing network latency, improving performance, and allow the FM-UWB to accommodate the increasing number of sensor nodes in the emerging applications such as High-Density Wireless Sensor Networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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2214 KiB  
Article
Mining Productive-Associated Periodic-Frequent Patterns in Body Sensor Data for Smart Home Care
by Walaa N. Ismail and Mohammad Mehedi Hassan
Sensors 2017, 17(5), 952; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17050952 - 26 Apr 2017
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 5740
Abstract
The understanding of various health-oriented vital sign data generated from body sensor networks (BSNs) and discovery of the associations between the generated parameters is an important task that may assist and promote important decision making in healthcare. For example, in a smart home [...] Read more.
The understanding of various health-oriented vital sign data generated from body sensor networks (BSNs) and discovery of the associations between the generated parameters is an important task that may assist and promote important decision making in healthcare. For example, in a smart home scenario where occupants’ health status is continuously monitored remotely, it is essential to provide the required assistance when an unusual or critical situation is detected in their vital sign data. In this paper, we present an efficient approach for mining the periodic patterns obtained from BSN data. In addition, we employ a correlation test on the generated patterns and introduce productive-associated periodic-frequent patterns as the set of correlated periodic-frequent items. The combination of these measures has the advantage of empowering healthcare providers and patients to raise the quality of diagnosis as well as improve treatment and smart care, especially for elderly people in smart homes. We develop an efficient algorithm named PPFP-growth (Productive Periodic-Frequent Pattern-growth) to discover all productive-associated periodic frequent patterns using these measures. PPFP-growth is efficient and the productiveness measure removes uncorrelated periodic items. An experimental evaluation on synthetic and real datasets shows the efficiency of the proposed PPFP-growth algorithm, which can filter a huge number of periodic patterns to reveal only the correlated ones. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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15606 KiB  
Article
Adaptive Interference Cancellation of ECG Signals
by Aifeng Ren, Zhenxing Du, Juan Li, Fangming Hu, Xiaodong Yang and Haider Abbas
Sensors 2017, 17(5), 942; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17050942 - 25 Apr 2017
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 7089
Abstract
As an important biological signal, electrocardiogram (ECG) signals provide a valuable basis for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of several diseases. However, its reference significance is based on the effective acquisition and correct recognition of ECG signals. In fact, this mV-level weak signal [...] Read more.
As an important biological signal, electrocardiogram (ECG) signals provide a valuable basis for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of several diseases. However, its reference significance is based on the effective acquisition and correct recognition of ECG signals. In fact, this mV-level weak signal can be easily affected by various interferences caused by the power of magnetic field, patient respiratory motion or contraction, and so on from the sampling terminal to the receiving and display end. The overlapping interference affects the quality of ECG waveform, leading to the false detection and recognition of wave groups, and thus causing misdiagnosis or faulty treatment. Therefore, the elimination of the interference of the ECG signal and the subsequent wave group identification technology has been a hot research topic, and their study has important significance. Based on the above, this paper introduces two improved adaptive algorithms based on the classical least mean square (LMS) algorithm by introducing symbolic functions and block-processing concepts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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4170 KiB  
Article
Cross Layer Design for Optimizing Transmission Reliability, Energy Efficiency, and Lifetime in Body Sensor Networks
by Xi Chen, Yixuan Xu and Anfeng Liu
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 900; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040900 - 19 Apr 2017
Cited by 60 | Viewed by 6730
Abstract
High transmission reliability, energy efficiency, and long lifetime are pivotal issues for wireless body area networks (WBANs. However, these performance metrics are not independent of each other, making it hard to obtain overall improvements through optimizing one single aspect. Therefore, a Cross Layer [...] Read more.
High transmission reliability, energy efficiency, and long lifetime are pivotal issues for wireless body area networks (WBANs. However, these performance metrics are not independent of each other, making it hard to obtain overall improvements through optimizing one single aspect. Therefore, a Cross Layer Design Optimal (CLDO) scheme is proposed to simultaneously optimize transmission reliability, energy efficiency, and lifetime of WBANs from several layers. Firstly, due to the fact that the transmission power of nodes directly influences the reliability of links, the optimized transmission power of different nodes is deduced, which is able to maximize energy efficiency in theory under the premise that requirements on delay and jitter are fulfilled. Secondly, a relay decision algorithm is proposed to choose optimized relay nodes. Using this algorithm, nodes will choose relay nodes that ensure a balance of network energy consumption, provided that all nodes transmit with optimized transmission power and the same packet size. Thirdly, the energy consumption of nodes is still unbalanced even with optimized transmission power because of their different locations in the topology of the network. In addition, packet size also has an impact on final performance metrics. Therefore, a synthesized cross layer method for optimization is proposed. With this method, the transmission power of nodes with more residual energy will be enhanced while suitable packet size is determined for different links in the network, leading to further improvements in the WBAN system. Both our comprehensive theoretical analysis and experimental results indicate that the performance of our proposed scheme is better than reported in previous studies. Relative to the relay selection and power control game (RSPCG) scheme, the CLDO scheme can enhance transmission reliability by more than 44.6% and prolong the lifetime by as much as 33.2%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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3771 KiB  
Article
A Prosthetic Hand Body Area Controller Based on Efficient Pattern Recognition Control Strategies
by Simone Benatti, Bojan Milosevic, Elisabetta Farella, Emanuele Gruppioni and Luca Benini
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 869; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040869 - 15 Apr 2017
Cited by 54 | Viewed by 13762
Abstract
Poliarticulated prosthetic hands represent a powerful tool to restore functionality and improve quality of life for upper limb amputees. Such devices offer, on the same wearable node, sensing and actuation capabilities, which are not equally supported by natural interaction and control strategies. The [...] Read more.
Poliarticulated prosthetic hands represent a powerful tool to restore functionality and improve quality of life for upper limb amputees. Such devices offer, on the same wearable node, sensing and actuation capabilities, which are not equally supported by natural interaction and control strategies. The control in state-of-the-art solutions is still performed mainly through complex encoding of gestures in bursts of contractions of the residual forearm muscles, resulting in a non-intuitive Human-Machine Interface (HMI). Recent research efforts explore the use of myoelectric gesture recognition for innovative interaction solutions, however there persists a considerable gap between research evaluation and implementation into successful complete systems. In this paper, we present the design of a wearable prosthetic hand controller, based on intuitive gesture recognition and a custom control strategy. The wearable node directly actuates a poliarticulated hand and wirelessly interacts with a personal gateway (i.e., a smartphone) for the training and personalization of the recognition algorithm. Through the whole system development, we address the challenge of integrating an efficient embedded gesture classifier with a control strategy tailored for an intuitive interaction between the user and the prosthesis. We demonstrate that this combined approach outperforms systems based on mere pattern recognition, since they target the accuracy of a classification algorithm rather than the control of a gesture. The system was fully implemented, tested on healthy and amputee subjects and compared against benchmark repositories. The proposed approach achieves an error rate of 1.6% in the end-to-end real time control of commonly used hand gestures, while complying with the power and performance budget of a low-cost microcontroller. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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4554 KiB  
Article
The Modeling and Simulation of the Galvanic Coupling Intra-Body Communication via Handshake Channel
by Maoyuan Li, Yong Song, Wansong Li, Guangfa Wang, Tianpeng Bu, Yufei Zhao and Qun Hao
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 863; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040863 - 14 Apr 2017
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 6205
Abstract
Intra-body communication (IBC) is a technology using the conductive properties of the body to transmit signal, and information interaction by handshake is regarded as one of the important applications of IBC. In this paper, a method for modeling the galvanic coupling intra-body communication [...] Read more.
Intra-body communication (IBC) is a technology using the conductive properties of the body to transmit signal, and information interaction by handshake is regarded as one of the important applications of IBC. In this paper, a method for modeling the galvanic coupling intra-body communication via handshake channel is proposed, while the corresponding parameters are discussed. Meanwhile, the mathematical model of this kind of IBC is developed. Finally, the validity of the developed model has been verified by measurements. Moreover, its characteristics are discussed and compared with that of the IBC via single body channel. Our results indicate that the proposed method will lay a foundation for the theoretical analysis and application of the IBC via handshake channel. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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873 KiB  
Article
Wireless Fractal Ultra-Dense Cellular Networks
by Yixue Hao, Min Chen, Long Hu, Jeungeun Song, Mojca Volk and Iztok Humar
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 841; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040841 - 12 Apr 2017
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 6974
Abstract
With the ever-growing number of mobile devices, there is an explosive expansion in mobile data services. This represents a challenge for the traditional cellular network architecture to cope with the massive wireless traffic generated by mobile media applications. To meet this challenge, research [...] Read more.
With the ever-growing number of mobile devices, there is an explosive expansion in mobile data services. This represents a challenge for the traditional cellular network architecture to cope with the massive wireless traffic generated by mobile media applications. To meet this challenge, research is currently focused on the introduction of a small cell base station (BS) due to its low transmit power consumption and flexibility of deployment. However, due to a complex deployment environment and low transmit power of small cell BSs, the coverage boundary of small cell BSs will not have a traditional regular shape. Therefore, in this paper, we discuss the coverage boundary of an ultra-dense small cell network and give its main features: aeolotropy of path loss fading and fractal coverage boundary. Simple performance analysis is given, including coverage probability and transmission rate, etc., based on stochastic geometry theory and fractal theory. Finally, we present an application scene and discuss challenges in the ultra-dense small cell network. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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5644 KiB  
Article
Inertial Sensor-Based Robust Gait Analysis in Non-Hospital Settings for Neurological Disorders
by Can Tunca, Nezihe Pehlivan, Nağme Ak, Bert Arnrich, Gülüstü Salur and Cem Ersoy
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 825; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040825 - 11 Apr 2017
Cited by 108 | Viewed by 19566
Abstract
The gold standards for gait analysis are instrumented walkways and marker-based motion capture systems, which require costly infrastructure and are only available in hospitals and specialized gait clinics. Even though the completeness and the accuracy of these systems are unquestionable, a mobile and [...] Read more.
The gold standards for gait analysis are instrumented walkways and marker-based motion capture systems, which require costly infrastructure and are only available in hospitals and specialized gait clinics. Even though the completeness and the accuracy of these systems are unquestionable, a mobile and pervasive gait analysis alternative suitable for non-hospital settings is a clinical necessity. Using inertial sensors for gait analysis has been well explored in the literature with promising results. However, the majority of the existing work does not consider realistic conditions where data collection and sensor placement imperfections are imminent. Moreover, some of the underlying assumptions of the existing work are not compatible with pathological gait, decreasing the accuracy. To overcome these challenges, we propose a foot-mounted inertial sensor-based gait analysis system that extends the well-established zero-velocity update and Kalman filtering methodology. Our system copes with various cases of data collection difficulties and relaxes some of the assumptions invalid for pathological gait (e.g., the assumption of observing a heel strike during a gait cycle). The system is able to extract a rich set of standard gait metrics, including stride length, cadence, cycle time, stance time, swing time, stance ratio, speed, maximum/minimum clearance and turning rate. We validated the spatio-temporal accuracy of the proposed system by comparing the stride length and swing time output with an IR depth-camera-based reference system on a dataset comprised of 22 subjects. Furthermore, to highlight the clinical applicability of the system, we present a clinical discussion of the extracted metrics on a disjoint dataset of 17 subjects with various neurological conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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1600 KiB  
Article
Fusing Bluetooth Beacon Data with Wi-Fi Radiomaps for Improved Indoor Localization
by Loizos Kanaris, Akis Kokkinis, Antonio Liotta and Stavros Stavrou
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 812; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040812 - 10 Apr 2017
Cited by 67 | Viewed by 9205
Abstract
Indoor user localization and tracking are instrumental to a broad range of services and applications in the Internet of Things (IoT) and particularly in Body Sensor Networks (BSN) and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) scenarios. Due to the widespread availability of IEEE 802.11, many [...] Read more.
Indoor user localization and tracking are instrumental to a broad range of services and applications in the Internet of Things (IoT) and particularly in Body Sensor Networks (BSN) and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) scenarios. Due to the widespread availability of IEEE 802.11, many localization platforms have been proposed, based on the Wi-Fi Received Signal Strength (RSS) indicator, using algorithms such as K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) and Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE). In this paper, we introduce a hybrid method that combines the simplicity (and low cost) of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and the popular 802.11 infrastructure, to improve the accuracy of indoor localization platforms. Building on KNN, we propose a new positioning algorithm (dubbed i-KNN) which is able to filter the initial fingerprint dataset (i.e., the radiomap), after considering the proximity of RSS fingerprints with respect to the BLE devices. In this way, i-KNN provides an optimised small subset of possible user locations, based on which it finally estimates the user position. The proposed methodology achieves fast positioning estimation due to the utilization of a fragment of the initial fingerprint dataset, while at the same time improves positioning accuracy by minimizing any calculation errors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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639 KiB  
Article
A Survey on Mobility Support in Wireless Body Area Networks
by Beom-Su Kim, Kyong Hoon Kim and Ki-Il Kim
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 797; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040797 - 07 Apr 2017
Cited by 41 | Viewed by 5604
Abstract
Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have attracted research interests from the community, as more promising healthcare applications have a tendency to employ them as underlying network technology. While taking design issues, such as small size hardware as well as low power computing, into [...] Read more.
Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have attracted research interests from the community, as more promising healthcare applications have a tendency to employ them as underlying network technology. While taking design issues, such as small size hardware as well as low power computing, into account, a lot of research has been proposed to accomplish the given tasks in WBAN. However, since most of the existing works are basically developed by assuming all nodes in the static state, these schemes therefore cannot be applied in real scenarios where network topology between sensor nodes changes frequently and unexpectedly according to human moving behavior. However, as far as the authors know, there is no survey paper to focus on research challenges for mobility support in WBAN yet. To address this deficiency, in this paper, we present the state-of-the-art approaches and discuss the important features of related to mobility in WBAN. We give an overview of mobility model and categorize the models as individual and group. Furthermore, an overview of networking techniques in the recent literature and summary are compiled for comparison in several aspects. The article also suggests potential directions for future research in the field. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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3821 KiB  
Article
A QoS Optimization Approach in Cognitive Body Area Networks for Healthcare Applications
by Tauseef Ahmed and Yannick Le Moullec
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 780; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040780 - 06 Apr 2017
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 4870
Abstract
Wireless body area networks are increasingly featuring cognitive capabilities. This work deals with the emerging concept of cognitive body area networks. In particular, the paper addresses two important issues, namely spectrum sharing and interferences. We propose methods for channel and power allocation. The [...] Read more.
Wireless body area networks are increasingly featuring cognitive capabilities. This work deals with the emerging concept of cognitive body area networks. In particular, the paper addresses two important issues, namely spectrum sharing and interferences. We propose methods for channel and power allocation. The former builds upon a reinforcement learning mechanism, whereas the latter is based on convex optimization. Furthermore, we also propose a mathematical channel model for off-body communication links in line with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard. Simulation results for a nursing home scenario show that the proposed approach yields the best performance in terms of throughput and QoS for dynamic environments. For example, in a highly demanding scenario our approach can provide throughput up to 7 Mbps, while giving an average of 97.2% of time QoS satisfaction in terms of throughput. Simulation results also show that the power optimization algorithm enables reducing transmission power by approximately 4.5 dBm, thereby sensibly and significantly reducing interference. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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4436 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Optimal Sensor Positions for Activity Classification and Application on a Different Data Collection Scenario
by Natthapon Pannurat, Surapa Thiemjarus, Ekawit Nantajeewarawat and Isara Anantavrasilp
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 774; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040774 - 05 Apr 2017
Cited by 32 | Viewed by 7823
Abstract
This paper focuses on optimal sensor positioning for monitoring activities of daily living and investigates different combinations of features and models on different sensor positions, i.e., the side of the waist, front of the waist, chest, thigh, head, upper arm, wrist, and ankle. [...] Read more.
This paper focuses on optimal sensor positioning for monitoring activities of daily living and investigates different combinations of features and models on different sensor positions, i.e., the side of the waist, front of the waist, chest, thigh, head, upper arm, wrist, and ankle. Nineteen features are extracted, and the feature importance is measured by using the Relief-F feature selection algorithm. Eight classification algorithms are evaluated on a dataset collected from young subjects and a dataset collected from elderly subjects, with two different experimental settings. To deal with different sampling rates, signals with a high data rate are down-sampled and a transformation matrix is used for aligning signals to the same coordinate system. The thigh, chest, side of the waist, and front of the waist are the best four sensor positions for the first dataset (young subjects), with average accuracy values greater than 96%. The best model obtained from the first dataset for the side of the waist is validated on the second dataset (elderly subjects). The most appropriate number of features for each sensor position is reported. The results provide a reference for building activity recognition models for different sensor positions, as well as for data acquired from different hardware platforms and subject groups. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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1468 KiB  
Article
Posture Detection Based on Smart Cushion for Wheelchair Users
by Congcong Ma, Wenfeng Li, Raffaele Gravina and Giancarlo Fortino
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 719; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040719 - 29 Mar 2017
Cited by 89 | Viewed by 13100
Abstract
The postures of wheelchair users can reveal their sitting habit, mood, and even predict health risks such as pressure ulcers or lower back pain. Mining the hidden information of the postures can reveal their wellness and general health conditions. In this paper, a [...] Read more.
The postures of wheelchair users can reveal their sitting habit, mood, and even predict health risks such as pressure ulcers or lower back pain. Mining the hidden information of the postures can reveal their wellness and general health conditions. In this paper, a cushion-based posture recognition system is used to process pressure sensor signals for the detection of user’s posture in the wheelchair. The proposed posture detection method is composed of three main steps: data level classification for posture detection, backward selection of sensor configuration, and recognition results compared with previous literature. Five supervised classification techniques—Decision Tree (J48), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Naive Bayes, and k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN)—are compared in terms of classification accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure. Results indicate that the J48 classifier provides the highest accuracy compared to other techniques. The backward selection method was used to determine the best sensor deployment configuration of the wheelchair. Several kinds of pressure sensor deployments are compared and our new method of deployment is shown to better detect postures of the wheelchair users. Performance analysis also took into account the Body Mass Index (BMI), useful for evaluating the robustness of the method across individual physical differences. Results show that our proposed sensor deployment is effective, achieving 99.47% posture recognition accuracy. Our proposed method is very competitive for posture recognition and robust in comparison with other former research. Accurate posture detection represents a fundamental basic block to develop several applications, including fatigue estimation and activity level assessment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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3601 KiB  
Article
A Wellness Mobile Application for Smart Health: Pilot Study Design and Results
by Giovanna Sannino, Manolo Forastiere and Giuseppe De Pietro
Sensors 2017, 17(3), 611; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17030611 - 17 Mar 2017
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 8241
Abstract
Wellness is one of the main factors crucial in the avoidance of illness or disease. Experience has shown that healthy lifestyle programs are an important strategy to prevent the major shared risk factors for many diseases including cardiovascular diseases, strokes, diabetes, obesity, and [...] Read more.
Wellness is one of the main factors crucial in the avoidance of illness or disease. Experience has shown that healthy lifestyle programs are an important strategy to prevent the major shared risk factors for many diseases including cardiovascular diseases, strokes, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. Within the ambit of the Smart Health 2.0 project, a Wellness App has been developed which has the aim of providing people with something similar to a personal trainer. This Wellness App is able to gather information about the subject, to classify her/him by evaluating some of her/his specific characteristics (physical parameters and lifestyle) and to make personal recommendations to enhance her/his well-being. The application can also give feedback on the effectiveness of the specified characteristics by monitoring their evolution over time, and can provide a positive incentive to stimulate the subject to achieve her/his wellness goals. In this paper, we present a pilot study conducted in Calabria, a region of Italy, aimed at an evaluation of the validity, usability, and navigability of the app, and of people’s level of satisfaction with it. The preliminary results show an average score of 77.16 for usability and of 76.87 for navigability, with an improvement of the Wellness Index with a significance average of 95% and of the Mediterranean Adequacy Index with a significance average of as high as 99%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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987 KiB  
Article
Performance Analysis of Different Backoff Algorithms for WBAN-Based Emerging Sensor Networks
by Pervez Khan, Niamat Ullah, Farman Ali, Sana Ullah, Youn-Sik Hong, Ki-Young Lee and Hoon Kim
Sensors 2017, 17(3), 492; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17030492 - 02 Mar 2017
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 6455
Abstract
The Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) procedure of IEEE 802.15.6 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for the Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) use an Alternative Binary Exponential Backoff (ABEB) procedure. The backoff algorithm plays an important role to avoid collision [...] Read more.
The Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) procedure of IEEE 802.15.6 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for the Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) use an Alternative Binary Exponential Backoff (ABEB) procedure. The backoff algorithm plays an important role to avoid collision in wireless networks. The Binary Exponential Backoff (BEB) algorithm used in different standards does not obtain the optimum performance due to enormous Contention Window (CW) gaps induced from packet collisions. Therefore, The IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA has developed the ABEB procedure to avoid the large CW gaps upon each collision. However, the ABEB algorithm may lead to a high collision rate (as the CW size is incremented on every alternative collision) and poor utilization of the channel due to the gap between the subsequent CW. To minimize the gap between subsequent CW sizes, we adopted the Prioritized Fibonacci Backoff (PFB) procedure. This procedure leads to a smooth and gradual increase in the CW size, after each collision, which eventually decreases the waiting time, and the contending node can access the channel promptly with little delay; while ABEB leads to irregular and fluctuated CW values, which eventually increase collision and waiting time before a re-transmission attempt. We analytically approach this problem by employing a Markov chain to design the PFB scheme for the CSMA/CA procedure of the IEEE 80.15.6 standard. The performance of the PFB algorithm is compared against the ABEB function of WBAN CSMA/CA. The results show that the PFB procedure adopted for IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA outperforms the ABEB procedure. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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8939 KiB  
Article
A Doppler Radar System for Sensing Physiological Parameters in Walking and Standing Positions
by Malikeh Pour Ebrahim, Majid Sarvi and Mehmet Rasit Yuce
Sensors 2017, 17(3), 485; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17030485 - 01 Mar 2017
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 7777
Abstract
Doppler radar can be implemented for sensing physiological parameters wirelessly at a distance. Detecting respiration rate, an important human body parameter, is essential in a range of applications like emergency and military healthcare environments, and Doppler radar records actual chest motion. One challenge [...] Read more.
Doppler radar can be implemented for sensing physiological parameters wirelessly at a distance. Detecting respiration rate, an important human body parameter, is essential in a range of applications like emergency and military healthcare environments, and Doppler radar records actual chest motion. One challenge in using Doppler radar is being able to monitor several patients simultaneously and in different situations like standing, walking, or lying. This paper presents a complete transmitter-receiver Doppler radar system, which uses a 4 GHz continuous wave radar signal transmission and receiving system, to extract base-band data from a phase-shifted signal. This work reports experimental evaluations of the system for one and two subjects in various standing and walking positions. It provides a detailed signal analysis of various breathing rates of these two subjects simultaneously. These results will be useful in future medical monitoring applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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3810 KiB  
Article
A Fast Channel Assignment Scheme for Emergency Handling in Wireless Body Area Networks
by Sabita Nepal, Amod Pudasani and Seokjoo Shin
Sensors 2017, 17(3), 477; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17030477 - 27 Feb 2017
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4302
Abstract
Ubiquitous healthcare is a promising technology that has attracted significant attention in recent years; this has led to the realization of wireless body area networks (WBANs). For designing a robust WBAN system, the WBAN has to solve the drawbacks of wireless technology. Also, [...] Read more.
Ubiquitous healthcare is a promising technology that has attracted significant attention in recent years; this has led to the realization of wireless body area networks (WBANs). For designing a robust WBAN system, the WBAN has to solve the drawbacks of wireless technology. Also, a WBAN has to support immediate, reliable data transmission for medical services during emergencies. Hence, this study proposes a new MAC superframe structure that can handle emergencies by delivering strongly correlated regular data to a caretaker, within a certain time threshold. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed MAC protocol achieves low latency and high throughput. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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4180 KiB  
Article
IEEE 802.15.4 Frame Aggregation Enhancement to Provide High Performance in Life-Critical Patient Monitoring Systems
by Muhammad Sajjad Akbar, Hongnian Yu and Shuang Cang
Sensors 2017, 17(2), 241; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17020241 - 28 Jan 2017
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 6199
Abstract
In wireless body area sensor networks (WBASNs), Quality of Service (QoS) provision for patient monitoring systems in terms of time-critical deadlines, high throughput and energy efficiency is a challenging task. The periodic data from these systems generates a large number of small packets [...] Read more.
In wireless body area sensor networks (WBASNs), Quality of Service (QoS) provision for patient monitoring systems in terms of time-critical deadlines, high throughput and energy efficiency is a challenging task. The periodic data from these systems generates a large number of small packets in a short time period which needs an efficient channel access mechanism. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard is recommended for low power devices and widely used for many wireless sensor networks applications. It provides a hybrid channel access mechanism at the Media Access Control (MAC) layer which plays a key role in overall successful transmission in WBASNs. There are many WBASN’s MAC protocols that use this hybrid channel access mechanism in variety of sensor applications. However, these protocols are less efficient for patient monitoring systems where life critical data requires limited delay, high throughput and energy efficient communication simultaneously. To address these issues, this paper proposes a frame aggregation scheme by using the aggregated-MAC protocol data unit (A-MPDU) which works with the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC layer. To implement the scheme accurately, we develop a traffic patterns analysis mechanism to understand the requirements of the sensor nodes in patient monitoring systems, then model the channel access to find the performance gap on the basis of obtained requirements, finally propose the design based on the needs of patient monitoring systems. The mechanism is initially verified using numerical modelling and then simulation is conducted using NS2.29, Castalia 3.2 and OMNeT++. The proposed scheme provides the optimal performance considering the required QoS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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3121 KiB  
Article
Value-Based Caching in Information-Centric Wireless Body Area Networks
by Fadi M. Al-Turjman, Muhammad Imran and Athanasios V. Vasilakos
Sensors 2017, 17(1), 181; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17010181 - 19 Jan 2017
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 5101
Abstract
We propose a resilient cache replacement approach based on a Value of sensed Information (VoI) policy. To resolve and fetch content when the origin is not available due to isolated in-network nodes (fragmentation) and harsh operational conditions, we exploit a content caching approach. [...] Read more.
We propose a resilient cache replacement approach based on a Value of sensed Information (VoI) policy. To resolve and fetch content when the origin is not available due to isolated in-network nodes (fragmentation) and harsh operational conditions, we exploit a content caching approach. Our approach depends on four functional parameters in sensory Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). These four parameters are: age of data based on periodic request, popularity of on-demand requests, communication interference cost, and the duration for which the sensor node is required to operate in active mode to capture the sensed readings. These parameters are considered together to assign a value to the cached data to retain the most valuable information in the cache for prolonged time periods. The higher the value, the longer the duration for which the data will be retained in the cache. This caching strategy provides significant availability for most valuable and difficult to retrieve data in the WBANs. Extensive simulations are performed to compare the proposed scheme against other significant caching schemes in the literature while varying critical aspects in WBANs (e.g., data popularity, cache size, publisher load, connectivity-degree, and severe probabilities of node failures). These simulation results indicate that the proposed VoI-based approach is a valid tool for the retrieval of cached content in disruptive and challenging scenarios, such as the one experienced in WBANs, since it allows the retrieval of content for a long period even while experiencing severe in-network node failures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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8575 KiB  
Article
PlaIMoS: A Remote Mobile Healthcare Platform to Monitor Cardiovascular and Respiratory Variables
by Ramses Miramontes, Raúl Aquino, Arturo Flores, Guillermo Rodríguez, Rafael Anguiano, Arturo Ríos and Arthur Edwards
Sensors 2017, 17(1), 176; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17010176 - 19 Jan 2017
Cited by 38 | Viewed by 10356
Abstract
The number of elderly and chronically ill patients has grown significantly over the past few decades as life expectancy has increased worldwide, leading to increased demands on the health care system and significantly taxing traditional health care practices. Consequently, there is an urgent [...] Read more.
The number of elderly and chronically ill patients has grown significantly over the past few decades as life expectancy has increased worldwide, leading to increased demands on the health care system and significantly taxing traditional health care practices. Consequently, there is an urgent need to use technology to innovate and more constantly and intensely monitor, report and analyze critical patient physiological parameters beyond conventional clinical settings in a more efficient and cost effective manner. This paper presents a technological platform called PlaIMoS which consists of wearable sensors, a fixed measurement station, a network infrastructure that employs IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11 to transmit data with security mechanisms, a server to analyze all information collected and apps for iOS, Android and Windows 10 mobile operating systems to provide real-time measurements. The developed architecture, designed primarily to record and report electrocardiogram and heart rate data, also monitors parameters associated with chronic respiratory illnesses, including patient blood oxygen saturation and respiration rate, body temperature, fall detection and galvanic resistance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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886 KiB  
Article
On Connectivity of Wireless Sensor Networks with Directional Antennas
by Qiu Wang, Hong-Ning Dai, Zibin Zheng, Muhammad Imran and Athanasios V. Vasilakos
Sensors 2017, 17(1), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17010134 - 12 Jan 2017
Cited by 38 | Viewed by 7901
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the network connectivity of wireless sensor networks with directional antennas. In particular, we establish a general framework to analyze the network connectivity while considering various antenna models and the channel randomness. Since existing directional antenna models have their [...] Read more.
In this paper, we investigate the network connectivity of wireless sensor networks with directional antennas. In particular, we establish a general framework to analyze the network connectivity while considering various antenna models and the channel randomness. Since existing directional antenna models have their pros and cons in the accuracy of reflecting realistic antennas and the computational complexity, we propose a new analytical directional antenna model called the iris model to balance the accuracy against the complexity. We conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the analytical framework. Our results show that our proposed analytical model on the network connectivity is accurate, and our iris antenna model can provide a better approximation to realistic directional antennas than other existing antenna models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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3566 KiB  
Article
An Approach to Biometric Verification Based on Human Body Communication in Wearable Devices
by Jingzhen Li, Yuhang Liu, Zedong Nie, Wenjian Qin, Zengyao Pang and Lei Wang
Sensors 2017, 17(1), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17010125 - 10 Jan 2017
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 5646
Abstract
In this paper, an approach to biometric verification based on human body communication (HBC) is presented for wearable devices. For this purpose, the transmission gain S21 of volunteer’s forearm is measured by vector network analyzer (VNA). Specifically, in order to determine the chosen [...] Read more.
In this paper, an approach to biometric verification based on human body communication (HBC) is presented for wearable devices. For this purpose, the transmission gain S21 of volunteer’s forearm is measured by vector network analyzer (VNA). Specifically, in order to determine the chosen frequency for biometric verification, 1800 groups of data are acquired from 10 volunteers in the frequency range 0.3 MHz to 1500 MHz, and each group includes 1601 sample data. In addition, to achieve the rapid verification, 30 groups of data for each volunteer are acquired at the chosen frequency, and each group contains only 21 sample data. Furthermore, a threshold-adaptive template matching (TATM) algorithm based on weighted Euclidean distance is proposed for rapid verification in this work. The results indicate that the chosen frequency for biometric verification is from 650 MHz to 750 MHz. The false acceptance rate (FAR) and false rejection rate (FRR) based on TATM are approximately 5.79% and 6.74%, respectively. In contrast, the FAR and FRR were 4.17% and 37.5%, 3.37% and 33.33%, and 3.80% and 34.17% using K-nearest neighbor (KNN) classification, support vector machines (SVM), and naive Bayesian method (NBM) classification, respectively. In addition, the running time of TATM is 0.019 s, whereas the running times of KNN, SVM and NBM are 0.310 s, 0.0385 s, and 0.168 s, respectively. Therefore, TATM is suggested to be appropriate for rapid verification use in wearable devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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4253 KiB  
Article
Fuzzy Computing Model of Activity Recognition on WSN Movement Data for Ubiquitous Healthcare Measurement
by Shu-Yin Chiang, Yao-Chiang Kan, Yun-Shan Chen, Ying-Ching Tu and Hsueh-Chun Lin
Sensors 2016, 16(12), 2053; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16122053 - 03 Dec 2016
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 6117
Abstract
Ubiquitous health care (UHC) is beneficial for patients to ensure they complete therapeutic exercises by self-management at home. We designed a fuzzy computing model that enables recognizing assigned movements in UHC with privacy. The movements are measured by the self-developed body motion sensor, [...] Read more.
Ubiquitous health care (UHC) is beneficial for patients to ensure they complete therapeutic exercises by self-management at home. We designed a fuzzy computing model that enables recognizing assigned movements in UHC with privacy. The movements are measured by the self-developed body motion sensor, which combines both accelerometer and gyroscope chips to make an inertial sensing node compliant with a wireless sensor network (WSN). The fuzzy logic process was studied to calculate the sensor signals that would entail necessary features of static postures and dynamic motions. Combinations of the features were studied and the proper feature sets were chosen with compatible fuzzy rules. Then, a fuzzy inference system (FIS) can be generated to recognize the assigned movements based on the rules. We thus implemented both fuzzy and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems in the model to distinguish static and dynamic movements. The proposed model can effectively reach the recognition scope of the assigned activity. Furthermore, two exercises of upper-limb flexion in physical therapy were applied for the model in which the recognition rate can stand for the passing rate of the assigned motions. Finally, a web-based interface was developed to help remotely measure movement in physical therapy for UHC. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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673 KiB  
Article
Potential of Wake-Up Radio-Based MAC Protocols for Implantable Body Sensor Networks (IBSN)—A Survey
by Vignesh Raja Karuppiah Ramachandran, Eyuel D. Ayele, Nirvana Meratnia and Paul J. M. Havinga
Sensors 2016, 16(12), 2012; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16122012 - 29 Nov 2016
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5189
Abstract
With the advent of nano-technology, medical sensors and devices are becoming highly miniaturized. Consequently, the number of sensors and medical devices being implanted to accurately monitor and diagnose a disease is increasing. By measuring the symptoms and controlling a medical device as close [...] Read more.
With the advent of nano-technology, medical sensors and devices are becoming highly miniaturized. Consequently, the number of sensors and medical devices being implanted to accurately monitor and diagnose a disease is increasing. By measuring the symptoms and controlling a medical device as close as possible to the source, these implantable devices are able to save lives. A wireless link between medical sensors and implantable medical devices is essential in the case of closed-loop medical devices, in which symptoms of the diseases are monitored by sensors that are not placed in close proximity of the therapeutic device. Medium Access Control (MAC) is crucial to make it possible for several medical devices to communicate using a shared wireless medium in such a way that minimum delay, maximum throughput, and increased network life-time are guaranteed. To guarantee this Quality of Service (QoS), the MAC protocols control the main sources of limited resource wastage, namely the idle-listening, packet collisions, over-hearing, and packet loss. Traditional MAC protocols designed for body sensor networks are not directly applicable to Implantable Body Sensor Networks (IBSN) because of the dynamic nature of the radio channel within the human body and the strict QoS requirements of IBSN applications. Although numerous MAC protocols are available in the literature, the majority of them are designed for Body Sensor Network (BSN) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). To the best of our knowledge, there is so far no research paper that explores the impact of these MAC protocols specifically for IBSN. MAC protocols designed for implantable devices are still in their infancy and one of their most challenging objectives is to be ultra-low-power. One of the technological solutions to achieve this objective so is to integrate the concept of Wake-up radio (WuR) into the MAC design. In this survey, we present a taxonomy of MAC protocols based on their use of WuR technology and identify their bottlenecks to be used in IBSN applications. Furthermore, we present a number of open research challenges and requirements for designing an energy-efficient and reliable wireless communication protocol for IBSN. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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2351 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Aggregation Delay for Multisource Sensor Data with On-Off Traffic Pattern in Wireless Body Area Networks
by Un-Ha Kim, Eutteum Kong, Hyun-Ho Choi and Jung-Ryun Lee
Sensors 2016, 16(10), 1622; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16101622 - 30 Sep 2016
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4990
Abstract
Data aggregation plays an important role to improve the transmission efficiency in wireless body area networks (WBANs); however, it inherently induces additional aggregation delay. Therefore, the effect of packet aggregation on WBAN applications, which are vulnerable to delay, must be analyzed rigorously. In [...] Read more.
Data aggregation plays an important role to improve the transmission efficiency in wireless body area networks (WBANs); however, it inherently induces additional aggregation delay. Therefore, the effect of packet aggregation on WBAN applications, which are vulnerable to delay, must be analyzed rigorously. In this paper, we analyze the packet aggregation delay for multisource sensor data with an on-off traffic pattern in WBANs. Considering two operational parameters of the aggregation threshold and aggregation timer, we calculate the probability that a packet aggregation occurs during a unit time and then derive the average aggregation delay in closed-form. The analysis results show that the aggregation delay increases as the aggregation timer or aggregation threshold increases, but is bounded below a certain level according to the number of active sensors and their on-off traffic attribute. This implies that the data aggregation technique can maximize the transmission efficiency while satisfying a given delay requirement in the WBAN system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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Review

Jump to: Research

1815 KiB  
Review
Survey of Motion Tracking Methods Based on Inertial Sensors: A Focus on Upper Limb Human Motion
by Alessandro Filippeschi, Norbert Schmitz, Markus Miezal, Gabriele Bleser, Emanuele Ruffaldi and Didier Stricker
Sensors 2017, 17(6), 1257; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17061257 - 01 Jun 2017
Cited by 262 | Viewed by 18885
Abstract
Motion tracking based on commercial inertial measurements units (IMUs) has been widely studied in the latter years as it is a cost-effective enabling technology for those applications in which motion tracking based on optical technologies is unsuitable. This measurement method has a high [...] Read more.
Motion tracking based on commercial inertial measurements units (IMUs) has been widely studied in the latter years as it is a cost-effective enabling technology for those applications in which motion tracking based on optical technologies is unsuitable. This measurement method has a high impact in human performance assessment and human-robot interaction. IMU motion tracking systems are indeed self-contained and wearable, allowing for long-lasting tracking of the user motion in situated environments. After a survey on IMU-based human tracking, five techniques for motion reconstruction were selected and compared to reconstruct a human arm motion. IMU based estimation was matched against motion tracking based on the Vicon marker-based motion tracking system considered as ground truth. Results show that all but one of the selected models perform similarly (about 35 mm average position estimation error). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Body Sensor Networks: Sensors, Systems, and Applications)
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