System Architecture of a Wireless Body Area Sensor Network for Ubiquitous Health Monitoring

Recent technological advances in sensors, low-power microelectronics and miniaturization, and wireless networking enabled the design and proliferation of wireless sensor networks capable of autonomously monitoring and controlling environments. One of the most promising applications of sensor networks is for human health monitoring. A number of tiny wireless sensors, strategically placed on the human body, create a wireless body area network that can monitor various vital signs, providing real-time feedback to the user and medical personnel. The wireless body area networks promise to revolutionize health monitoring. However, designers of such systems face a number of challenging tasks, as they need to address often quite conflicting requirements for size, operating time, precision, and reliability. In this paper we present hardware and software architecture of a working wireless sensor network system for ambulatory health status monitoring. The system consists of multiple sensor nodes that monitor body motion and heart activity, a network coordinator, and a personal server running on a personal digital assistant or a personal computer.