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Wireless Sensing Systems for Body Area Networks

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Sensors for Everyday Life

Part of the book series: Smart Sensors, Measurement and Instrumentation ((SSMI,volume 22))

Abstract

Body area networks (BANs) are a form of small-scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs) deployed on the human body. This technology embodies the convergence of wearable, sensing, and wireless communication techniques, with a focus mainly on health monitoring, human-machine interaction, and motion capturing applications. As the bridge between on-body circuits and their external application users, body-worn radio frequency (RF) structures operating at high frequencies have gained increasing attention in recent years, in particular RF structures fabricated with flexible or textile materials. Due to the flexibility of these RF structures to conform to human body for comfortable fit, they are well-suited for BAN applications. In addition, if the characteristics of these RF structures can naturally or technically be made to react to bodily phenomena such as temperature and humidity, the same structures (such as antennae) can also function as sensors. These RF structures with sensing capability could be referred to as wireless sensing structures. Besides, there also exist several techniques for the detection and the interpretation of the output signals of these sensing structures. For a system consisting of a wireless sensing structure and a data detection and interpretation circuit or device, we refer to it as a wireless sensing system. This chapter reviews the sensing mechanisms, data detection and interpretation methods and typical BAN applications of existing wireless sensing systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Xiaoyou Lin, Boon-Chong Seet & Frances Joseph

Authors
  1. Xiaoyou Lin
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  2. Boon-Chong Seet
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  3. Frances Joseph
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaoyou Lin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Telecomunicações and ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal

    Octavian Adrian Postolache

  2. Department of Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay

  3. Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Krishanthi P. Jayasundera

  4. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Akshya K. Swain

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Lin, X., Seet, BC., Joseph, F. (2017). Wireless Sensing Systems for Body Area Networks. In: Postolache, O., Mukhopadhyay, S., Jayasundera, K., Swain, A. (eds) Sensors for Everyday Life. Smart Sensors, Measurement and Instrumentation, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47319-2_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47319-2_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47318-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47319-2

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