As the aging population across the globe increases, the worldwide demand for better heathcare, real-time patient monitoring and faster recovery, and consumer convenience is sharply rising. Hence, the need to wirelessly link biological sensors and actuators to monitoring receivers, PDAs and telephones is acute. While implantable medical devices and on-body sensors have been around for sometime, this year is special for such devices as body area network (BAN) takes a big step forward. For the first time, members of the IEEE 802.15 WPAN Task Group 6 (TG6) met in Taipei, Taiwan in January to kick off the standardization process for short-range, wireless communication in the vicinity of, or inside the human body. TG6 was announced last December at the second International Symposium on Medical Information and Communications Technology (ISMICT 07) in Oulu, Finland. It was formed with the charter of drafting a standard for BAN. Arthur W. Astrin was named the chairman of this task group with researcher Huan-Bang Li of National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Yokosuka Radio Communications Research center, Yokosuka, J, as vice chairman. Astrin is also the CEO of Astrin Radio in Palo Alto, Calif.

There are more than 25 companies, including R&D centers and Universities, from around the world participating in this task group. Some notable names include AT&T, Broadcom, CSEM, Fujitsu, Freescale, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Motorola, NICT, Nokia, Olympus, Oki, Samsung, Thales, TDK and Qualcomm. The meeting in Taipei has resulted in the TG6 group issuing a call for applications to solicit data that will help the task group in its efforts to standardize BAN. It is inviting contributions from candidates working on wireless applications on, in or around a body, which require or may take advantage of a BAN network standard, as per the IEEE call. The task group is looking to identify key performance requirements/functional attributes needed to support these applications. The PAR for the TG6 is captured in IEEE 802.15 document (15-07-0575-09). Parties are requested to submit application ideas by March.

According to the IEEE 802.15 study group, there is a need for a communication standard optimized for low-power devices and operation on, in or around the human body (but not limited to humans) to serve a variety of applications including medical, consumer electronics and personal entertainment. What is unique is the presence of a body, which impacts the channel model and may require attention to additional regulatory issues like specific absorption rate (SAR) limits. The existence of a BAN network standard will provide opportunities to address these unique needs and to expand the wireless opportunities for products where people (bodies) are an intimate part of the equation, stated the TG6 group in its call for applications.

Although, the standard will specify a single MAC, it can specify multiple-frequency bands (PHY layers) including existing ISM bands as well as frequency bands approved by national medical and/or regulatory authorities (see “Medical info-communications signals an era of body area networking,” on p.10). In addition, support for quality of service (QoS), extremely low power, and data rates up to 10 Mbps is being considered while simultaneously complying with strict non-interference guidelines where needed. This standard will consider effects on portable antennas due to the presence of a per-son (varying with male, female, skinny, heavy, etc.), radiation-pattern shaping to minimize SAR into the body, and changes in characteristics as a result of the user motions.

Although, scientists around the world have envisioned the realization of such a body area network for gathering vital medical information on human body and transmitting it to a central node, which in turn communicates with the outside world using conventional technologies, it is here now. And the standardization process initiated by IEEE 802.15 task group 6 gives it the impetus needed to turn that vision into a reality.

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