Integrated wireless-based information processing and communications for e-healthcare system: Design, analysis, optimization and resource protection

This dissertation introduces a new wireless e-healthcare system, which couples a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) network with a wireless local area (WLAN) network using UMTS-WLAN technology. The medical wireless sensors collect the patient's medical data and transmit them to the medical center through a UMTS-WLAN access point or through a WLAN-enabled UMTS user equipment point (i.e., UMTS cellular terminal). With this system medical services can be provided in a wide area, and patients can be almost anywhere and still receive real-time health care. The model in OPNET environment shows the performance of our proposed wireless e-healthcare system.; For a wireless e-healthcare system accuracy of information transmission, when signals of a patient's vital signs must be transmitted through a communication channel, is of essential importance in design of e-healthcare systems and in medical diagnosis. When system resources are limited such as transmission bandwidth assigned to a wireless communication channel, appropriate utility of available resources to enhance information accuracy becomes imperative. This dissertation also analyzes the 145 fundamental relationships between accuracy of information exchange and available wireless communication resources on a platform of integrated information processing and wireless e-healthcare systems. The relationships are simulated in a typical medical diagnosis problem using lung sounds. The results demonstrate a trade-off between resource consumptions and medical information errors. When these relationships are integrated, an optimization procedure emerges that allows optimal allocation of resources to each system block to maximize overall medical information accuracy. Consequently, the overall errors of the medical signal will be minimized at the receiver end, and the diagnosis accuracy will be increased.; A wireless e-healthcare system is more vulnerable to resource consumption attacks than a wired one. This dissertation also proposes a new defense scheme toward actively resisting resource consumption attacks. A wireless medical terminal generates an authorized anonymous ID (AAI) using its true ID, and assigns its true ID with the produced AAI. Using an AAI, a legitimate wireless mobile terminal will be authenticated by the wireless e-healthcare system, however, its true ID is concealed, and it 'disappears' to potential attackers. This method will alleviate resource consumption attacks and protect the limited resource of a wireless e-healthcare system.