Decentralization of Services Through Three Tiers in Wireless Body Area Networks

Abstract

The Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) contains a set of sensors, placed in the patient’s environment, to detect the vital signs and transmit the results towards the relevant services that interact in urgent cases. The present work exposes a functional WBAN architecture formed by three layers: closest, intermediate and farthest. The closest layer senses the chemical and biological signs. If the case is normal, or it can be locally regulated, the service stops there; else the intermediate service, namely the local hospital, is consulted to make treatments. Therefore, the patient will be transported into the hospital for examinations. If this condition is established the processus stopped there, otherwise, the request of help from an outside hospital becomes necessary. This request passes through a manager that supervises a network of hospitals and looks for a free place to welcome the patient. After the localization of a hospital, its coordinates will be forwarded into the customer hospital, for transporting the patient. The simulation results show that this design increases the patient’s probability of healing and maximizes the use of the available resources, relative to the centralization of services at a single layer or at two layers.

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