A Network-based System Architecture for Remote Medical Applications

Nowadays, the evolution of wireless communication and network technologies enables remote medical services to be available everywhere in the world. In this paper, a network-based system architecture adopting wireless personal area network (WPAN) protocol IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee standard and 3G communication networks for remote medical applications is proposed. In the proposed system, the number and type of medical sensors are scalable depending on individual needs. This feature allows the system to be flexibly applied in several medical applications. Furthermore, a differentiated service using priority scheduling and data compression is introduced. This scheme can not only reduce transmission delay for critical physiological signals and enhance bandwidth utilization at the same time, but also decrease power consumption of the hand-held personal server which uses battery as the energy source.