Performance evaluation of low rate WPANs for medical applications

In this article we consider the emerging low-rate wireless personal area network (WPAN) technology as specified in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and evaluate its suitability for medical applications. The main objective for this effort is to develop a universal and interoperable interface for medical equipment . We focus on scalability issues and the need to support several communicating devices near a patient's bedside. Given the nature and the diversity of the clinical environment, it is most likely that different medical applications will use different wireless technologies. We choose to quantify the performance of IEEE 802.15.4 devices in the presence of IEEE 802.11b devices since it may be the technology of choice for most Web access, E-mail, video, and printing applications.