An Autonomous Wireless Body Area Network Implementation Towards IoT Connected Healthcare Applications

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 5; pp. 11413 - 11422
• Main Authors: Taiyang Wu, Fan Wu, Redoute, Jean-Michel, Yuce, Mehmet Rasit
• Format: Journal Article Web Resource
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.01.2017; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE); Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc
• Subjects: Bluetooth; Body Area Network; Body area networks; Body temperature; Electrical & electronics engineering; Energy harvesting; Energy transmission; Engineering, computing & technology; Fall detection; Health care; Ingénierie électrique & électronique; Ingénierie, informatique & technologie; Internet of Things; Maximum power point trackers; Maximum Power Point Tracking; Maximum power tracking; Nodes; Patient monitoring; Sensor nodes; Sensors; Smartphones; Solar energy; Solar panels; Temperature distribution; Temperature measurement; Wearable sensors; Wearable technology; Wireless body area network; Wireless communication; Wireless communications; Wireless local area networks (WLAN); Wireless networks; Wireless telecommunication systems
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2716344

Internet of Things (IoT) is a new technological paradigm that can connect things from various fields through the Internet. For the IoT connected healthcare applications, the wireless body area network (WBAN) is gaining popularity as wearable devices spring into the market. This paper proposes a wearable sensor node with solar energy harvesting and Bluetooth low energy transmission that enables the implementation of an autonomous WBAN. Multiple sensor nodes can be deployed on different positions of the body to measure the subject's body temperature distribution, heartbeat, and detect falls. A web-based smartphone application is also developed for displaying the sensor data and fall notification. To extend the lifetime of the wearable sensor node, a flexible solar energy harvester with an output-based maximum power point tracking technique is used to power the sensor node. Experimental results show that the wearable sensor node works well when powered by the solar energy harvester. The autonomous 24 h operation is achieved with the experimental results. The proposed system with solar energy harvesting demonstrates that long-term continuous medical monitoring based on WBAN is possible provided that the subject stays outside for a short period of time in a day.