Reliability and security in a wireless body area network of intelligent sensors

A new generation of ubiquitous computing systems integrates a variety of mobile devices on the user's body or in close proximity of the user. We believe that the natural communication in the body area network (BAN) is a wireless communication. There are two very important problems in the design of the wireless body area network (WBAN): high error transmission rate, and security of transmission. In this thesis, we investigated reliability and security issues in the wireless body area network of the intelligent sensors (WBAN). We proposed a novel error measurement scheme that could be implemented on wireless sensors with limited memory and processing power. We also implemented and analyzed two encryption algorithms: the Tiny Encryption Algorithm (TEA) and the Rijndael encryption algorithm. All experiments are performed in the wireless network of intelligent sensors WISE developed at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.