<Session 4: Biomedical Application>UWB Body Area Network to Medical Vital Sensing in hospital, homes and combined Satellite Communication

Abstract

We investigated advantages and drawbacks of wireless BAN (Body Area network) systems using UWB(Ultra Wide Band) wireless technology that are expected robustness against interference, low power consumption, and little interference to a body for healthcare. Two types of low and high frequency bands for UWB were examined using various vital sensors for hospital and home bedside monitoring. The high band UWB BAN system with TDMA protocol in MAC worked well to prevent interference. The most important drawbacks was shadowing problem when changing the position of body on the bed. We confirmed by experiments that shadowing can be prevented by selecting proper antenna and setting a coordinator near the ceiling and another coordinator under the bed. We also examined the combined high band prototype of UWB-BAN with WINDS satellite communication link to perform real transmission of UWB-BAN vital data and DICOM CT slice image, assuming the case of disaster when the land communication is damaged. No packet loss was experienced during two hours. Round trip time from KASHIMA to YRP (Yokosuka) was 610msec with processing delay that is allowable for vital data.