Ubiquitous HealthCare in Wireless Body Area Networks

Recent advances in wireless communications, system on chip and low power sensor nodes allow realization of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). WBANs comprise of tiny sensors, which collect information of a patient's vital signs and provide a real time feedback. In addition, WBANs also support many applications including ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, gaming, military, etc. Ubiquitous healthcare is required by elderly people to facilitate them with instant monitoring anywhere they move around. In this paper, we provide a survey on different architectures used in WBANs for ubiquitous healthcare monitoring. Different standards and devices used in these architectures are also discussed in this paper. Finally, path loss in WBANs and its impact on communication is presented with the help of simulations performed for different models of In-Body communication and different factors (such as, attenuation, frequency, distance etc) influencing path loss in On-Body communications.