Biosignal and context monitoring: Distributed multimedia applications of body area networks in healthcare

We are investigating the use of Body Area Networks (BANs), wearable sensors and wireless communications for measuring, processing, transmission, interpretation and display of biosignals. The goal is to provide telemonitoring and teletreatment services for patients. The remote health professional can view a multimedia display which includes graphical and numerical representation of patients’ biosignals. Addition of feedback-control enables teletreatment services; teletreatment can be delivered to the patient via multiple modalities including tactile, text, auditory and visual. We describe the health BAN and a generic mobile health service platform and two context aware applications. The epilepsy application illustrates processing and interpretation of multi-source, multimedia BAN data. The chronic pain application illustrates multi-modal feedback and treatment, with patients able to view their own biosignals on their handheld device

Model Driven Development of m-Health Systems (with a Touch of Formality)

We propose a model driven design and development methodology augmented with formal validation and verification (V&V) for the development of mobile health systems. Systems which deliver healthcare services remotely should be developed using robust and trusted engineering technologies. The methodology instantiates steps in the MDA trajectory using formal methods to verify critical properties of models, to test preservation of those properties in the derived implementations and to effect model transformations by correctness preserving transformations. The methodology is described and some initial modelling is reported

Timely and reliable packets delivery over Internet of Vehicles (IoVs) for road accidents prevention: a cross-layer approach

With the envisioned era of Internet of Things (IoTs), all aspects of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) will be connected to improve transport safety, relieve traffic congestion, reduce air pollution, enhance the comfort of transportation and significantly reduce road accidents. In IoVs, regular exchange of current position, direction, velocity, etc., enables mobile vehicles to predict an upcoming accident and alert the human drivers in time or proactively take precautionary actions to avoid the accident. The actualization of this concept requires the use of channel access protocols that can guarantee reliable and timely broadcast of safety messages. This paper investigates the application of network coding concept to increase content of every transmission and achieve improved broadcast reliability with less number of retransmission. In particular, we proposed Code Aided Retransmission-based Error Recovery (CARER) scheme, introduced an RTB/CTB handshake to overcome hidden node problem and reduce packets collision rate. In order to avoid broadcast storm problem associated with the use of RTB/CTB packet in a broadcast transmission, we developed a rebroadcasting metric used to successfully select a vehicle to rebroadcast the encoded message. The performance of CARER protocol is clearly shown with detailed theoretical analysis and further validated with simulation experiments

A comprehensive survey of wireless body area networks on PHY, MAC, and network layers solutions

Recent advances in microelectronics and integrated circuits, system-on-chip design, wireless communication and intelligent low-power sensors have allowed the realization of a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). A WBAN is a collection of low-power, miniaturized, invasive/non-invasive lightweight wireless sensor nodes that monitor the human body functions and the surrounding environment. In addition, it supports a number of innovative and interesting applications such as ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, interactive gaming, and military applications. In this paper, the fundamental mechanisms of WBAN including architecture and topology, wireless implant communication, low-power Medium Access Control (MAC) and routing protocols are reviewed. A comprehensive study of the proposed technologies for WBAN at Physical (PHY), MAC, and Network layers is presented and many useful solutions are discussed for each layer. Finally, numerous WBAN applications are highlighted

A Wireless ECG Monitoring System for Healthcare

With aging of population, there has been a significant increase in the number of patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases. This results in an increased cost of healthcare associated with hospitalization, treatment and monitoring. In this paper, an architectural framework of a system that utilizes mobile technologies to enable continuous, wireless, electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring of patients anytime anywhere is presented. The intelligent agents residing in the system detect any anomalous ECG readings and trigger an alarm that would be sent to the healthcare center in case of an emergency. The proposed system would not only provide a better quality of life to the patients by giving them the independence to move around freely in addition to continuous monitoring of heart but will also save healthcare costs associated with prolonged hospitalization of cardiac patients

WBSN based safe lifestyle: A case study of heartrate monitoring system

A Heart is the vital organ of the body. According to the “world health statistics, 2017” by WHO, about 460,000 people die due to fatal heart attacks every year. To reduce the death rate due to fatal heart attacks and malfunctioning of the cardiovascular system, this paper proposed a Wireless Body Sensor Network (WBSN) based, portable, easily affordable, miniatured, accurate “Heartrate Monitoring System (HMS)”. HMS can be used to regularly examine the cardiac condition at home or hospital to avoid or early detection of any serious condition. Heartrate Monitoring Algorithm (HMA) was designed to observe the spread heartbeat spectrum and worked at the backend of HMS. A case study was performed for forty healthy young subjects. Each subject data was computed for (sub) ̅-3S_