An experimental system enabling WBAN data delivery via satellite communication links

We describe an experimental system that combines a wireless body area network (WBAN) with satellite communication links to enable remote medical treatment and healthcare services. One main advantage of WBAN is that it enables automatic biosignal collection in real time which is essential in medical treatment and healthcare vigilance. The WBAN is implemented using ultra-wideband technology. Multi-hop mechanism is adopted to guarantee reliable connection. In case of less of medical resources such as in emergency, in rural or isolated areas, the system can send the corresponding biosignal to a remote hospital in real time to help patient management by introducing satellite communication links. In this paper, the whole experimental system is illustrated. Some basic experiments are carried out. It is confirmed that the multi-hop mechanism of WBAN works well and the relative delay of WBAN data delivery via satellite links is dependent on the satellite link capacity.