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Review
. 2011;11(6):5561-95.
doi: 10.3390/s110605561. Epub 2011 May 26.

Wearable and implantable wireless sensor network solutions for healthcare monitoring

Ashraf Darwish  1 , Aboul Ella Hassanien
Affiliations
Review

Wearable and implantable wireless sensor network solutions for healthcare monitoring

Ashraf Darwish et al. Sensors (Basel). 2011.

Erratum in

  • Sensors (Basel). 2012;12(9):12375-6

Abstract

Wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies are considered one of the key research areas in computer science and the healthcare application industries for improving the quality of life. The purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of current developments and future direction of research on wearable and implantable body area network systems for continuous monitoring of patients. This paper explains the important role of body sensor networks in medicine to minimize the need for caregivers and help the chronically ill and elderly people live an independent life, besides providing people with quality care. The paper provides several examples of state of the art technology together with the design considerations like unobtrusiveness, scalability, energy efficiency, security and also provides a comprehensive analysis of the various benefits and drawbacks of these systems. Although offering significant benefits, the field of wearable and implantable body sensor networks still faces major challenges and open research problems which are investigated and covered, along with some proposed solutions, in this paper.

Keywords: biosensors; body area networks; healthcare applications; implantable sensors; nanotechnology; privacy; security; wearable sensors; wireless sensor networks.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Interdisciplinary sciences for the future of WIBSN.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
A typical WSN system for detecting and transmitting signals from a human body: (a) current application of healthcare sensor network and (b) future application of healthcare sensor network targeted by wireless body area network.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
WBAN and its environment.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Typical WWBAN architecture.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
The system architecture with a wearable smart shirt.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
A biopotential readout circuit linked to the biopotential electrodes to extract the electroencephalogram signals.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Implantable artificial retina for blind people.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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