Toward the Internet of Medical Things for Real-Time Health Monitoring Over Wi-Fi

The introduction of wearables in the consumer market has led to an exponential proliferation of connected healthcare devices. They can monitor the status of health ubiquitously and provide insights about long-term and short-term health issues. The time-critical nature of such a system can save lives by generating timely alerts in case of health anomalies. To achieve this objective, in this paper, we specify quality of service (QoS) requirements and present a three-layer design framework of Healthcare Internet of Things (H-IoT) networks. Furthermore, we identify the key enabling technologies to support real-time communication in IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs) such as multi-link operation (MLO), orthogonal frequency division multiple access, spectrum expansion, and enhancing channel utilization over Wi-Fi networks. Moreover, we present a representative case study on the ambient assisted living (AAL) scenario, where the efficacy of MLO is considered to achieve ultra-low latency in a Wi-Fi-based H-IoT network. This study provides a template for other health-related applications that are strictly latency-bound, such as remote surgeries, e-consultations, and countering pandemics.

Introduction

Wireless communication has undergone rapid evolution in recent years, propelled by the need to meet the demanding quality of service (QoS) standards of modern applications. In this regard, fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks have transitioned into a beyond-5G (B5G) era, while simultaneously pursuing the development of the sixth-generation (6G) standard. However, Wi-Fi is still the predominant technology for Internet access as 60% of Internet traffic travels via Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi 6E was officially adopted in 2020, with its successor, Wi-Fi 7, set for adoption in 2024. Notably, 6G cellular networks are projected to provide throughput exceeding 1 Tbps with a latency as low as 0.1 ms. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi 7 is expected to offer a maximum throughput of 46.1 Gbps with single-digit millisecond latency for randomly accessing devices. These advances in throughput and latency are made possible by harnessing recently opened frequency bands alongside multi-user technologies. Furthermore, robust antenna designs and full-duplex capabilities can serve to further enhance performance in terms of throughput and latency [1].