Wireless Body Area Networks: Applications and Technologies

The increasing use of wireless networks and the constant miniaturization of electrical invasive/non-invasive devices have empow- ered the development of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). A WBAN provides a continuous health monitoring of a patient without any constraint on his/her normal daily life activities. Many technologies have proved their efficiency in supporting WBANs applications, such as remote monitoring, biofeedback and assisted living by responding to their specific quality of service (QoS) requirements. Due to numerous available technologies, selecting the appropriate technology for a medical application is being a challenging task. In this paper, the different medical applications are presented. The most common technologies used in WBANs are highlighted. Finally, a matching between each application and the corresponding suitable technology is studied.