WiserBAN

The requirements for achieving a nearly invisible WiserBAN radio microsystem are: • the sensor nodes must be ultra-miniature, e.g. fit within very tiny/thin housings such as miniature hearing aids, cardiac implants, insulin pumps, cochlear implants, • the wireless link must be ultra low-power, for use in lifestyle and bio-medical applications, using tiny power sources, • the antenna and radio must adapt to around-the-body propagation losses due to various node placements on or in the body, but also variable conditions due to moving parts, • the node must include high performance data-processing capability, which is needed to process, fusion the sensor data coming from many sensors placed around the body, and extract the relevant features for further transmission. Current available solutions addressing the increasing demand for BAN specific solutions are using non-specific Personal-Area-Network (PAN) solutions. These WPAN, which are typified by Bluetooth or ZigBee wireless solutions, enable the realization of proto-BAN solutions that allow basic BAN system realizations, but present major limitations in terms of power and size: • PAN modules are too large, • their power consumption is high, • the radio IC comes without embedded low-power sensor-data processing capability, • PAN solutions are optimized for mobile phone or computer centric applications, • antennas for PAN are designed as stand-alone components.