A Comparative Study on Ultra-Wideband and Ultrasonic Technologies for Wireless Body Area Networks and Healthcare

With the advent of MEMS and integrated circuits, size of device reduced to the order of mm, with micro-sensors and microprocessors and other components on it. This low power miniature sensor device placed on the human body or inside the human body can collect the information or symptoms of the body that can be used for diagnosis, and in some cases for cure or relief. This information can also be sent to the medical center for the remote monitoring. For networking of these devices an appropriate choice of radio technology and communication methodology has to be made, that is suitable for requirements of such networks like heat dissipation, transducer size, QoS provisioning, propagation inside body, interference, transmission power etc. UWB has been identified as a solution for WBAN in IEEE802.15.6, but there are issues to be addressed such as attenuation inside body for implantable devices, energy efficient networking with low heat dissipation. Ultrasonic communication although an emerging without much well established standard or protocols promises better propagation inside body in which water content is high and hence well suited for implantable devices. It is known to be used without much health hazard in Medical applications. This thesis compares and evaluates two technologies for Wireless Body Area Networks, compares their applications. There is a initial discussion on existing technologies for Body Area Networks. This thesis provides an extensive survey of existing work on UWB and ultrasonic for body area networks that helps in making the radio choice for different medical applications, design choices for WBAN protocols and highlights the unaddressed research challenges in using UWB and Ultrasonic for WBAN applications.