Requirements and Challenges in Body Sensor Networks: a Survey

Recent advances in wireless sensor networks have provided many opportunities for researchers on wireless networks around the body such as Body Area Network (BAN) or Body Sensor Network (BSN). A BSN allows health monitoring of patients whereby caregivers receive feedback from them without disrupting their normal activities. This monitoring requires the employment of the low-power sensor nodes implanted in or worn on the human body. This paper presents a discussion of BSNs, communication standards and their characteristics. Energy, quality of service and routing are among the crucial requirements and challenges facing BSNs which are studied. The paper also provides an investigation of many existing solutions and technologies for the challenges and requirements at physical, MAC, network, transport, and application layers. Finally, some open research issues and challenges for each layer are discussed to be addressed in further research.