Moshaddique Al Ameen

Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Sensor Networks for Healthcare Applications

The use of wireless sensor networks (WSN) in healthcare applications is growing in a fast pace. Numerous applications such as heart rate monitor, blood pressure monitor and endoscopic capsule are already in use. To address the growing use of sensor technology in this area, a new field known as wireless body area networks (WBAN or simply BAN) has emerged. As most devices and their applications are wireless in nature, security and privacy concerns are among major areas of concern. Due to direct involvement of humans also increases the sensitivity. Whether the data gathered from patients or individuals are obtained with the consent of the person or without it due to the need by the system, misuse or privacy concerns may restrict people from taking advantage of the full benefits from the system. People may not see these devices safe for daily use. There may also possibility of serious social unrest due to the fear that such devices may be used for monitoring and tracking individuals by government agencies or other private organizations. In this paper we discuss these issues and analyze in detail the problems and their possible measures.

QoS Issues with Focus on Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area networks (WBAN) applications have emerged as one of the hottest research areas of wireless sensor networks (WSN). With the advent of miniature, cost effective and wearable sensor devices, WBAN has attracted large amount of research time. Lots of works are going on in this direction. Besides open issues in WSN like standardization, energy efficiency, security and privacy factors, QoS issues are also of major concern. Lots of research is going on around the world to improve QoS factors in sensor networks. Some people have suggested protocols with QoS focus for WSN. But QoS requirements vary from application to application. It is fact that the heterogeneous working requirements of WBAN define different QoS issues which are specific to that particular application area only. WBAN applications are very sensitive and hence QoS issues in WBAN require more attention and focus and should be taken up more seriously. In this paper we have tried to present various aspects of QoS with focus on WBAN. We have also tried to present other factors that particularly influence the overall quality of service in WBAN.

A power efficient MAC protocol for wireless body area networks

Applications of wearable and implanted wireless sensor devices are hot research area. A specialized field called the body area networks (BAN) has emerged to support this area. Managing and controlling such a network is a challenging task. An efficient media access control (MAC) protocol to handle proper management of media access can considerably improve the performance of such a network. Power consumption and delay are major concerns for MAC protocols in a BAN. Low cost wakeup radio module attached with sensor devices can help reduce power consumption and prolong the network lifetime by reducing idle state power consumption and increasing sleep time of a BAN node. In this article, we propose a new MAC protocol for BAN using out of band (on-demand) wakeup radio through a centralized and coordinated external wakeup mechanism. We have compared our method against some existing MAC protocols. Our method is found to be efficient in terms of power consumption and delay.

Energy Saving Mechanisms for MAC Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy efficiency is a primary requirement in a wireless sensor network (WSN). This is a major design parameter in medium access control (MAC) protocols for WSN due to limited resources in sensor nodes that include low battery power. Hence a proposed MAC protocol must be energy efficient by reducing the potential energy wastes. Developing such a MAC protocol has been a hot research area in WSN. To avoid wasting the limited energy, various energy saving mechanisms are proposed for MAC protocols. These mechanisms have a common design objective—to save energy to maximize the network lifetime. This paper presents a survey on various energy saving mechanisms that are proposed for MAC protocols in WSN. We present a detailed discussion of these mechanisms and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. We also discuss MAC protocols that use these energy saving mechanisms.

A study on proposed IEEE 802.15 WBAN MAC protocols

Sensor networks are being researched and deployed in wide range of applications in healthcare. These networks when centered on the proximity of human body create an unique structure. The IEEE 802.15 Task Group 6 (TG6), Body Area Networks (BAN) or Wireless BAN (WBAN) is formed to address specific needs of this area. The task group is developing a communication standard optimized for low power devices and operation in, on or around the human body. The purpose is to serve a variety of applications including medical, and non-medical such as consumer electronics/personal entertainment and others. It is still in developing stage and implementation of the standard is not finalized yet. Various institutes/groups have proposed MAC protocols specifically to address the needs of WBAN. In this paper we present an analysis of these protocols. We compared and analyzed each protocol on fifteen diverse points starting from BAN requirements to energy efficiency.

A power efficient MAC protocol for implant device communication in Wireless Body Area Networks

Applications of sensor networks in healthcare have undergone major changes in recent times. Implanted wireless sensor devices inside the human body to monitor the activities are a reality now. A new field called the Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN or BAN) has emerged as a hot research area. To fulfill the needs for a common standard and solve the issues in this emerging field, IEEE has proposed a new task group, the IEEE 802.15.6 TG6. To control the communications from implanted devices in both PHY and MAC point of view is still a major challenge. An efficient MAC protocol can help manage and control the communication. In this paper, we propose one such MAC protocol to control the communication in implant devices. Our method of using wakeup table for normal communication and radio based wakeup for emergency communication is found to be efficient in terms of energy consumption, and delay.

Applicability of Telemedicine in Bangladesh: Current Status and Future Prospects

Telemedicine refers to the use of information and communication technology to provide and support health care mainly for the purpose of providing consultation. It is also a way to provide medical procedures or examinations to remote locations. It has the potential to improve both the quality and the access to health care services delivery while lowering costs even in the scarcity of resources. Understanding the potentiality of telemedicine, many developing countries are implementing telemedicine to provide health care facility to remote area where health care facilities are deficient. Bangladesh is not an exception to this either. In this paper we mention the reasons why Bangladesh has to move for telemedicine. We also present the past and on-going telemedicine activities and projects in Bangladesh. Analyzing these projects we have found out some factors which should be assessed carefully for successful implementation of telemedicine application. Finally we propose a prototype telemedicine network for Bangladesh that can improve health facilities through telemedicine by making a connection between rural health facility providers and special hospitals.

Design and analysis of a MAC protocol for wireless body area network using wakeup radio

Wireless sensor networks are widely used for healthcare applications. A new field known as wireless body area networks (WBAN) has emerged to support this area. An energy efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol can increase the performance of such a network. The major requirements for a WBAN MAC protocol are energy efficiency and low delay. In this paper, we propose a MAC protocol for WBAN using wakeup radio mechanism. We present a detailed analytical model for both energy consumption and delay. We have simulated the proposed MAC and compared the results. It is found that the proposed MAC has improved the performance in terms of energy consumption and delay.

Framed slotted aloha based MAC protocol for low energy critical infrastructure monitoring networks

SUMMARY Recently, the IEEE TG4k has been formed to amend the IEEE 802.15 family to address the low energy critical infrastructure monitoring networks. The purpose is to facilitate point to multi-thousands of point communication to collect the scheduled and event data from a large number of nonmains powered endpoints that are widely dispersed. It should support low energy operation, which is necessary for multiyear battery life. Other major features are application data rate up to 40 Kb/s, thousands of endpoints per mains powered infrastructure, asymmetric application data flow, small and infrequent messages, tolerant to data latency, etc. In this paper, we present a discussion on low energy critical infrastructure monitoring networks. We propose a medium access control protocol based on framed slotted aloha for these networks. We investigated probable packet sizes, energy consumptions, battery lifetime and the success rate for our protocol. The proposed protocol is simple to implement. Simulation results show that it is efficient in terms of packet success rate, energy consumption, and battery lifetime.Copyright

Energy Efficient MAC Protocol for Low-Energy Critical Infrastructure Monitoring Networks Using Wakeup Radio

Critical infrastructure monitoring applications are rapidly increasing. Application requirements include reliable data transfer, energy efficiency, and long deployment lifetime. These applications must also be able to operate in an extremely low-cost communication environment in order to be attractive to potential users. A low rate wireless personal area network can help control and manage the operations of such applications. In this paper, we present a medium access control (MAC) protocol for low-energy critical infrastructure monitoring (LECIM) applications. The proposed MAC protocol is based on a framed slotted aloha multiple access schemes. For downlink communication, we use a wakeup radio approach to avoid complex bookkeeping associated with the traditional MAC protocols. Analytical expressions for power consumption and delay are derived to analyze and compare the performance of our proposed protocol with the existing well-known T-MAC, B-MAC, X-MAC, ZigBee, and WiseMAC protocols. It is shown that our proposed protocol outperforms all the other protocols in terms of power consumption and delay.