Delay, Reliability, and Throughput Based QoS Profile: A MAC Layer Performance Optimization Mechanism for Biomedical Applications in Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks

Table 1

(a) Requirements of medical applications [1–3]. (b) Projects under WBASNs.

(a)

Medical applications	Description of data	Data rate	Delay	Power consumption
Accelerometer	Measure body movements, for example, the velocity of the body	35 kbps	<250 ms	Low
Temperature	Provide the temperature of a body	120 bps	<250 ms	Low
Electromyogram (EMG)	Measure the electric activity of skeletal muscles	320 kbps	<250 ms	Low
Electroencephalogram (EEG)	Measure electrical spontaneous brain activity, the sensed information of brain electrodes forwarded to an amplifier to produce tracing patterns	90 kbps	<250 ms	Low
Magnetometer	Measure magnetic induction intensity	Up to 50 kbps	<250 ms	Medium
Heart rate	Measure the heart rate	Few kbps	<250 ms	Medium
Barometer	Measure the relative height of an object	45–100 kbps	<250 ms	Low
Gyroscope	Measure the angular velocity	35 kbps	<250 ms	Medium

(b)

Projects	Institution	Application	Communication scope	Sensors
LiveNet [19]	MIT	Epilepsy seizures detection	Wire, wireless 2.4 GHz radio	ECG, BP, EMG, SaO2
AMON [22]	EU IST FP5 Program	Cardiac and respiratory	GSM-based	ECG, BP, SaO2
WEALTHY [23]	EU IST FP5 Program	Rehabilitation for elderly people through monitoring	Bluetooth, GPRS	ECG, EMG respiratory, activity and temperature sensors
LifeGuard [24]	Stanford University, NASA	Monitoring in space and terrestrial	Serial cables, Bluetooth	ECG, BP, SaO2
MagIC [25]	University of Milan, Italy	Cardiology, respiratory and motion signal	Bluetooth	ECG, respiratory and temperature sensors
CodeBlue [26]	Harvard University	Activity monitoring system	ZigBee	ECG, SaO2, and activity recognition (motion sensors)
Body area networks [27]	Valencia, Spain, and Malta Universities	Recognition of physiological state (stress and fatigue)	WiFi, ZigBee and GPRS	ECG, BP, and respiratory
Human++ [28]	IMEC	Wearable sensor system for health monitoring	ZigBee	ECG, EEG, EMG
HealthGear [29]	Microsoft	Detection of sleep apnea events	Bluetooth	ECG, SaO2
Personal Health Monitor [30]	University of Technology Sydney, Australia	Heart-attacks	Bluetooth, GPRS	ECG, BP, and activity sensors
MobiHealth [31]	University of Geneva	Ambulatory patient monitoring	ZigBee, Bluetooth, GPRS	ECG, BP
CareNet [32]	Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering	Remote health monitoring	ZigBee	Gyroscope, accelerometer
ASNET [33]	King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia	Remote health monitoring	WiFi, Ethernet	BP and temperature sensors
WiMoCA [34]	University of Bologna, Italy	Sports/gesture detection system	Bluetooth	Accelerometer
UbiMon [35]	University of South Florida	Healthcare	ZigBee, WiFi, GPRS	ECG, SaO2