Application of Wireless Sensor Networks in Health Care System

Abstract

Recent, advances in wireless networks and electronics have led to the emergence of Wireless Sensor networks (WSNs). WSNs have been considered as one of the most important technologies that can change the future. These networks consist of small battery–powered motes with limited computation and radio communication capabilities. Each sensor in a sensor network consists of three subsystems: the sensor subsystem which senses the environment, the processing subsystem which performs local computations on the sensed data, and the communication subsystem which is responsible for message exchanges with neighboring sensors. WSNs comprise tiny wireless computers that sense, process, and communicate environmental stimuli, including temperature, light, and vibration. WSNs have been under rapid development and has become essential in such domains as industrial operations (factory, production, supply chains), health care (home monitoring, biomedical, food safety), environmental (agriculture, habitat preservation), infrastructure (energy, traffic and transportation, flood gauges, bridge stress, power grids, water distribution), and military, as well as for research and development. Advances in wireless sensor networking have opened up new opportunities in healthcare systems. Sensor-based technology has invaded medical devices to replace thousands of wires connected to these devices found in hospitals. This technology has the capability of providing reliability in addition to enhanced mobility. In the future, we will see the integration of a vast array of wireless networks into existing specialized medical technology. This paper will investigate the application of current state-of-the-art of wireless sensor networks in health care systems and will address how WSN concepts are integrated in our computer engineering program.