IEEE 802.15.6 standard in wireless body area networks from a healthcare point of view

The first standard supporting communication in wireless body area networks (WBANs) is IEEE 802.15 Task Groups 6 (TG6). IEEE 802.15.6 is a standard for short-range, low power, and highly reliable wireless communication in, on and around the human body. It supports a wide range of applications in body area networks (BANs) such as healthcare services. In WBANs, nodes are partitioned into a physical (PHY) layer and a medium access control (MAC) layer. In this paper, the MAC and PHY layers are investigated. The different types of communication supported by this standard, such as narrowband (NB), ultra-wideband (UWB), and human body communication (HBC), are further defined here. The security aspect of the standard is also discussed and investigated. Finally, using the standard and existing literature in WBAN, open issues and challenges are identified as a source of future study.