IEEE 802.15.4J: extend IEEE 802.15.4 radio into the MBAN spectrum [Industry Perspectives]

The medical body area network (MBAN) is one of the key technologies to deliver ubiquitous patient monitoring services [1]. However, most of the current MBAN solutions are deployed in the 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band, which is becoming more and more crowded, and the uncontrolled interference may limit large-scale deployment of medical-grade MBAN applications in the future. Recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has allocated the 2360-2400 MHz spectrum for MBAN use on a secondary basis in the United States [2]. One of the major benefits of the MBAN spectrum is the possibility to reuse mature and low-cost 2.4 GHz short-range radios for MBAN applications. Now, the IEEE 802.15 Task Group 4j (TG 4j) has been developing an amendment to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard to extend its physical (PHY) layer and medium access control (MAC) layer solutions to the MBAN spectrum with minimal changes.