Communication In Body Area Networks Research Articles

Hardware-realized secure transceiver for human body communication in wireless body area networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs), featuring wearable and implantable devices for collecting physiological data are increasingly critical in healthcare for enabling continuous remote monitoring, diagnostic improvements, and treatment optimization. Secure communication within WBANs is essential to protect sensitive health data from unauthorized access and manipulation. This paper introduces a novel secure digital (SD)- human body communication (HBC) Transceiver (TR) system, tailored for WBAN applications, that prioritizes security and offers significant enhancements in size, power efficiency, speed, and data transmission efficiency over current solutions. Leveraging a combination of frequency-selective (FS) digital transmission with walsh codes (WCs) or quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), and incorporating one-round encryption and decryption modules, the system complies with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard, ensuring broad compatibility. Specifically, the QAM-based SD-HBC TR system exhibits a 4% reduction in chip area, a 7.6% increase in operating frequency, a 3.4% decrease in power consumption, a 27.5% reduction in latency, and improvements of 33% in throughput and 35.5% in efficiency. Importantly, it achieves a bit error rate (BER) of up to 10-8 , demonstrating high reliability across communication methods. This research significantly advances secure communication in WBANs, offering a promising approach for enhancing the reliability, efficiency, and security of healthcare monitoring technologies.

Multiband Antenna Design with Integrated AMC Surface and FSS Superstrate for Wireless Body Area Network Communications

Multiband Antenna Design with Integrated AMC Surface and FSS Superstrate for Wireless Body Area Network Communications

User Orientation Detection in Relation to Antenna Geometry in Ultra-Wideband Wireless Body Area Networks Using Deep Learning.

In this paper, the issue of detecting a user's position in relation to the antenna geometry in ultra-wideband (UWB) off-body wireless body area network (WBAN) communication using deep learning methods is presented. To measure the impulse response of the channel, a measurement stand consisting of EVB1000 devices and DW1000 radio modules was developed and indoor static measurement scenarios were performed. It was proven that for the binary classification of user orientation, neural networks achieved accuracy that was more than 9% higher than that for the well-known threshold method. In addition, the classification of user position angles relative to the reference node was analyzed. It was proven that, using the proposed deep learning approach and the channel impulse response, it was possible to estimate the angle of the user's position in relation to the antenna geometry. Absolute user orientation angle errors of about 4-7° for convolutional neural networks and of about 14-15° for multilayer perceptrons were achieved in approximately 85% of the cases in both tested scenarios.

Energy-efficient aware and predicting bandwidth estimation routing protocol for hybrid communication in wireless body area networks

Energy-efficient aware and predicting bandwidth estimation routing protocol for hybrid communication in wireless body area networks

Wearable Full-Textile Spoof Surface Plasmon Polariton Transmission Line for Secured Communication in Wireless Body Area Network

Wearable Full-Textile Spoof Surface Plasmon Polariton Transmission Line for Secured Communication in Wireless Body Area Network

On the Performance of LoRa Empowered Communication for Wireless Body Area Networks

On the Performance of LoRa Empowered Communication for Wireless Body Area Networks

Access Control, Key Management, and Trust for Emerging Wireless Body Area Networks.

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are an emerging industrial technology for monitoring physiological data. These networks employ medical wearable and implanted biomedical sensors aimed at improving quality of life by providing body-oriented services through a variety of industrial sensing gadgets. The sensors collect vital data from the body and forward this information to other nodes for further services using short-range wireless communication technology. In this paper, we provide a multi-aspect review of recent advancements made in this field pertaining to cross-domain security, privacy, and trust issues. The aim is to present an overall review of WBAN research and projects based on applications, devices, and communication architecture. We examine current issues and challenges with WBAN communications and technologies, with the aim of providing insights for a future vision of remote healthcare systems. We specifically address the potential and shortcomings of various Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) architectures and communication schemes that are proposed to maintain security, privacy, and trust within digital healthcare systems. Although current solutions and schemes aim to provide some level of security, several serious challenges remain that need to be understood and addressed. Our aim is to suggest future research directions for establishing best practices in protecting healthcare data. This includes monitoring, access control, key management, and trust management. The distinguishing feature of this survey is the combination of our review with a critical perspective on the future of WBANs.

Impact of Parameter Adjustments in IEEE 802.15.6 MAC Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks

The WBAN requires a MAC protocol that complies with the specific requirements and specifications of the body area network communication. Typically, this technology is implemented using the IEEE 802.15.6 standard, which employs the CSMA/CA mechanism. The WBAN confronts the challenge of managing the probability of heavy traffic due to the substantial medical data generated by numerous biomedical sensors. This scenario could lead to network congestion, increasing delay and packet losses, thereby posing a risk of network instability. Hence, selecting appropriate parameters is crucial for developing a MAC protocol to reduce delay and packet losses while enhancing the network throughput. This paper evaluates the performance of the IEEE 802.15.6 MAC protocol by modifying parameters such as packet rate, simulation duration, and the number of sender nodes. The IEEE 802.15.6 MAC protocol implementations are assessed regarding delay, throughput, and packet loss using the Castalia-3.3 framework based on the OMNeT++ 4.6 platform. The outcome of this study indicates that the MAC protocol for WBAN applications can be optimized by configuring the parameters correctly.

Dual UWB bandpass filter with highly band-to-band rejection using stepped impedance stub-loaded resonators for WBAN health-care applications

Abstract With the rapid development of communication technology, the researches of multi-band filtering circuits have become more and more important. Multimode resonator (MMR) is one of the vital methods to provide multi-resonant modes within a single design. In this paper, a dual-band ultra-wideband bandpass filter (UWB-BPF) using stepped impedance stub-loaded resonators (SI-SLR) is presented. The main advantage of using SI-SLR is to have better performance with multimode behavior and more parameters to control resonant modes. SI-SLR combines the advantages of SIR and SLR structures, which gives a compact, high-performance multiband filter. The proposed filter design has compact size, sharp and flat response with low insertion loss (IL), low return loss (RL), and high band-to-band rejection. The filter is designed for UWB communication in wireless body area networks and fabricated on Arlon substrate with relative permittivity ${\varepsilon_{\textrm{r}}} = 3.25$ , thickness $0.8\;{\textrm{mm}}$ . The resulted dual-bands are centered at $4{\textrm{ GHz}}$ and $8.3{\textrm{ GHz}}$ with fractional bandwidths $37{\textrm{% }}$ and $48{\textrm{%}}$ . The simulation was carried out using CST Microwave Studio. The filter provides good passband performances, with IL 0.49 dB and 0.31 dB at the center frequency of lower and higher bands, respectively. The band-to-band 40 dB rejection is realized by adding circular spiral at the input/output of the filter.

WEARABLE ANTENNA DUAL BAND WITH ELECTROMAGNETIC BAND GAP (EBG) STRUCTURE FOR HEALTH APPLICATIONS

Telemedicine can solve several issues in the healthcare system. The wearable antenna works with the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band for wireless body area network (WBAN) communications. Wearable antennas are lightweight, easy to make, and so on. This antenna application's bandwidth is limited by the thin substrate. This research will create a wearable planar monopole antenna with a circular patch that can operate at 2,4 and 5,8 GHz. Antenna without the UC-EBG structure and antenna with the UC-EBG structure were tested. The simulation results without UC-EBG show that the return loss is -14.629 dB and -28,639 dB, the VSWR is 1,456 and 1,077, the bandwidth is 4988 MHz, and the gain is 2,517 dBi and 4,270 dBi. The simulation results with the addition of UC-EBG show that the return loss is -13,835 dB and -17,46 dB, the VSWR is 1,511 and 1,309, the bandwidth is 1480 MHz and 2320 MHz, and the gain is 2,869 dBi and 5,208 dBi. The measurement results with UC-EBG show that the return loss is -13,134 dB and -18,421 dB, the VSWR is 1,566 and 1,273, the bandwidth is 1080 MHz and 960 MHz, and the gain is 2,198 dBi and 4,98 dBi.

Comprehensive Analysis of Wireless Capsule Endoscopy Radio Channel Characteristics Using Anatomically Realistic Gastrointestinal Simulation Model

This paper presents a comprehensive study of radio channels related to capsule endoscopy communications in ultra wideband wireless body area networks (UWB-WBAN) utilizing multiple antenna systems. The research includes 363 channel realizations, obtained through simulations using an anatomically realistic voxel model and a capsule model. A capsule position is modelled in such a way that it moves throughout the entire intestinal tract. The study examines the frequency and time domain characteristics of the channels in various capsule locations, including the most challenging positions deep inside the tissues or far away from most of the antennas. Additionally, the propagation characteristics inside the abdominal tissue are studied by calculating the most obvious propagation paths based on power flow illustrations and reflecting the results with the channel impulse response analysis. The impact of capsule rotation is also studied. It is shown how small changes in capsule location can greatly impact on the channel characteristics if the thickness of the tissues between the capsule and the on-body antenna changes significantly. The paper concludes with statistical analysis of the channel data, including path loss and root mean square (RMS) delay spread. The results provide valuable insight into how the signal propagates inside different parts of the gastrointestinal tract. They show that channel attenuation remains moderate along most of the gastrointestinal tract, and that even the deepest locations in the small intestine area can be resolved with the use of directional on-body antennas and receivers with higher sensitivity.

Trust-Based Data Communication in Wireless Body Area Network for Healthcare Applications

A subset of Wireless Sensor Networks, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) is an emerging technology. WBAN is a collection of tiny pieces of wireless body sensors with small computational capability, communicating short distances using ZigBee or Bluetooth, an application mainly in the healthcare industry like remote patient monitoring. The small piece of sensor monitors health factors like body temperature, pulse rate, ECG, heart rate, etc., and communicates to the base station or central coordinator for aggregation or data computation. The final data is communicated to remote monitoring devices through the internet or cloud service providers. The main challenge for this technology is energy consumption and secure communication within the network and the possibility of attacks executed by malicious nodes, creating problems for the network. This system proposes a suitable trust model for secure communication in WBAN based on node trust and data trust. Node trust is calculated using direct trust calculation and node behaviours. The data trust is calculated using consistent data success and data aging. The performance is compared with an existing protocol like Trust Evaluation (TE)-WBAN and Body Area Network (BAN)-Trust which is not a cryptographic technique. The protocol is lightweight and has low overhead. The performance is rated best for Throughput, Packet Delivery Ratio, and Minimum delay. With extensive simulation on-off attacks, Selfishness attacks, sleeper attacks, and Message suppression attacks were prevented.

Circularly polarized wearable antenna with low specific absorption rate and high gain based on artificial magnetic conductor

Aiming at wearable electronic equipment in wireless body area network communication, we propose a circularly polarized wearable antenna based on artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) for the problem of unreliable data transmission of linearly polarized wearable antenna and reduction of transmission distance due to the low gain of antenna. The AMC of in-phase reflection reflects the backward radiation to the top to reduce the damage of the antenna to human body. And the polarization direction of the reflected wave reflected through AMC is the same as that of the main direction, which makes the radiation performance of the antenna improved. Meanwhile, the antenna is flexible and lightweight due to the use of flexible polyimide and graphene films as the substrate and conductor materials. The antenna was also simulated and the prototype was fabricated and tested. The simulation results show that the working bandwidth covers 2.4–2.48 GHz, and the peak gain is 8.09 dBi. The peak specific absorption rate of 1 g and 10 g of human tissue at an input power of 350 mW is 1.48 W kg−1 and 0.65 W kg−1, respectively, which meets the safety standards.

Long short‐term memory‐based power‐aware algorithm for prompt heterogenous activity

SummaryHuman–computer interaction plays a vital role in wireless body area networks, internet of things, and big data. Wearables are low‐power devices with minimal battery capacity. In general, wearables suffer from energy losses due to changes in the user's body posture, diffraction, reflection, and shadowing of the human body. As a result, many control packets are needed to ensure proper communication in wireless body area network. Hence, this research proposes a long short‐term memory‐based power‐aware (LSTM‐PA) algorithm to ensure burst data transmission during prompt heterogeneous activities in the presence and absence of inter‐WBAN interference. The proposed algorithm predicts the best quality time (BQT) for data transmission by activity classification and robust R2 similarity (RRS) metric. The minimum transmission power is estimated by the critical point classification technique. The activity classification accuracy is 92% in the LSTM‐PA algorithm. The energy consumption in the node is reduced by up to 46.34% compared to benchmark algorithms.

Channel Models for Inter-body Communication in Ultra Wideband-Based Body Area Networks

Channel Models for Inter-body Communication in Ultra Wideband-Based Body Area Networks

Compact ultra-wideband pattern diversity antenna for body-centric communications

AbstractThis paper presents a pattern diversity UWB antenna for Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) communications. Pattern diversity antenna comprises two antenna elements with directional and omnidirectional patterns suitable for off-body and on-body communications respectively. Several broad-banding techniques such as Co-Planar waveguide, parasitic patches, and cavity resonant techniques are incorporated in microstrip antenna to achieve an ultra-wideband of 7.5 GHz (3.1 to 10.6 GHz) with a directional pattern. Monopole radiator topology is utilized to achieve a UWB frequency range of 2.6–10.6 GHz with an omnidirectional pattern. Pattern diversity is achieved using an orthogonal arrangement of the antenna elements in a compact size of 40 mm × 34 mm, maintaining the isolation >20 dB between the antennas. Gain varies from 2.2 to 4.6 dBi and 2.5 to 7.5 dBi for omnidirectional and directional antenna respectively. The simulated radiation efficiency for the directional antenna and the omnidirectional antenna are 74–86% and 52–66.5% respectively. The proposed design provides a good diversity performance in the entire UWB bandwidth with ECC<0.1 and a diversity gain of approximately 10 dB. SAR impact evaluated under various conditions is found to be <1.6 W/Kg for 1 gram of tissue.

Efficient and lightweight protocol for anti-jamming communications in wireless body area networks

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have emerged as a new technology in healthcare. However, wireless interfaces make it more vulnerable to acute physical layer attacks. Indeed, jamming attacks on WBAN communications have become a significant challenge to address. This paper proposes a new security protocol against jamming attacks in healthcare and medical environments, combining Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), termed CFD-BD: Chaotic FH/DS Based Dissimulation. Our proposition is based on both the chaotic signal and dissimulation. The combination of these two techniques allows us to ensure an effective solution against jamming attacks and meet the challenges resulting from the constraints related to the limited resources of WBANs. The simulation results indicate that our proposal is lightweight in communication load, complexity, and storage.

Wearable Waveguide Surface for Low-Loss Body Area Network Communications

In this letter, a wearable waveguide surface for body area network communications is proposed. The designed structure is a via-less easy-to-manufacture waveguide surface optimized to work in 2.6 GHz band. It is built on a flexible substrate, which makes it suitable for integration in clothes. The experimental measurement of the waveguide surface placed around the human torso is presented. This waveguide structure increases the transmission level between two half-wave dipole end-launchers from −60 to −8 dB over a 435.8 mm distance.

An Optimized Feed Hexagonal Antenna with Defective Ground Plane for UWB Body Area Network Application

Body area network has facilitated monitoring, authentication and security through sensors or microstrip antenna with specified frequency. The purpose of this research work is to propose a simplified way to search for an optimal length of the inset for edge feeding using the Evolutionary Algorithm search by minimizing the reflection coefficient using ANSYS HFSS. The optimal inset length resulted in an antenna with better radiation efficiency and wider bandwidth. The antenna structure is 70x70x1.6 mm3, with a modified ground. The purpose of this antenna is communication in Ultra-wideband and works in 5.4, 8.1, and 9.8 GHz bands respectively. The resonant bandwidth measured are 1.02, 0.28, 0.12 GHz, respectively. Simultaneously the achievable gains are 3.18, 7.81, and 19.95 dB, respectively in free space. As the antenna is of wearable type, the front-to-back ratio evaluated for each band is 2.31, 7.01, and 13.91 respectively. The results of the fabricated antenna agree with the simulated results. The specific absorption rates at resonant frequencies were observed to be 0.3, 0.56 and 0.24 W/kg respectively when antenna is placed on a human tissue model. The antenna is useful for on-body communication at ISM band, and high data rate off-body communication in body area networks.

Security and Privacy Aware Communication in Body Area Networks Using Blockchain Technology

With the adoption of assorted gadgets and technology loaded devices, there is need to work on security and privacy while using such platforms. Now, the focus of concern has turned to the overwhelming secrecy, the high performance security, and integrity of the transactions in the cyber space. In relation to a chain of records which is interlinked and highly encrypted due to the involving hashing and encryption each process, it is known as a blockchain. The blockchain removes the possibility of a fraudulent or accidental tampering with the framework. Blockchain has the ability to store sensor data, as well as the capacity to thwart data falsification. IoT deployment plans are usually complex, and the distributed ledger is particularly well-suited for Internet of Things (IoT) discovery, authentication, and recording of information. Wireless body networks are set to be published here on the use trends of Blockchain deployment using advanced scripting and embedded technology the included incorporation of effectual effects gives the final results as well as opposed to the conventional cryptography approach to security.