Ultra-Low Power Sensor Design for Wireless Body Area Networks - Challenges, Potential Solutions, and Applications

This paper addresses the design challenges in wireless body area networks and gives an overview of recent technological achievements to tackle these challenges. It covers the areas of wireless communication, digital signal processing, sensing and read-out, and energy harvesting. In addition, this paper presents research platforms developed at IMEC/Holst Centre to illustrates how technological breakthroughs in these areas lead to the realization of ultra-low power wireless body area networks. It also demonstrates how the developed platform may help researchers to investigate emerging applications relying on wireless body area networks.