• ETRI Journal
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• 제41권4호
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• pp.452-464
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• 2019

The use of wireless body area networks (WBANs) in healthcare applications has made it convenient to monitor both health personnel and patient status continuously in real time through wearable wireless sensor nodes. However, the heterogeneous and complex network structure of WBANs has some disadvantages in terms of control and management. The software-defined network (SDN) approach is a promising technology that defines a new design and management approach for network communications. In order to create more flexible and dynamic network structures in WBANs, this study uses the SDN approach. For this, a WBAN architecture based on the SDN approach with a new energy-aware routing algorithm for healthcare architecture is proposed. To develop a more flexible architecture, a controller that manages all HUBs is designed. The proposed architecture is modeled using the Riverbed Modeler software for performance analysis. The simulation results show that the SDN-based structure meets the service quality requirements and shows superior performance in terms of energy consumption, throughput, successful transmission rate, and delay parameters according to the traditional routing approach.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제6권5호
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• pp.1267-1285
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• 2012

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) deal with variety of healthcare services with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. However, QoS handling is a challenging problem in such networks. In general, QoS related problems can be addressed from different layers in the networking protocol suite. Design of an efficient QoS aware Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol can address this problem in MAC layer. This paper analyzes the QoS requirements of WBAN, identifies the requisites of QoS handling system, and outlines the trends that are being followed for its advancement with focus on QoS issues at MAC layer. We review some prior works, compare them, and analyze the current research concerned with problem of providing QoS in WBAN. We also explore some open issues and discuss them.

• ETRI Journal
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• 제32권1호
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• pp.11-21
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• 2010

A novel ultra-wideband (UWB) transceiver structure is presented to be used in wireless body area networks (WBANs). In the proposed structure, a data channel and a control channel are combined into a single transmission signal. In the signal, a modulation method mixing pulse position modulation and pulse amplitude modulation is proposed. A mathematical framework calculating the power spectrum density of the proposed pulse-based signal evaluates its coexistence with conventional radio systems. The transceiver structure is discussed, and the receiving performance is investigated in the additive white Gaussian noise channel. It is demonstrated that the proposed scheme is easier to match to the UWB emission mask than conventional UWB systems. The proposed scheme achieves the data rate requirement of WBAN; the logical control channel achieves better receiving performance than the logical data channel, which is useful for controlling and maintaining networks. The proposed scheme is also easy to implement.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.167-174
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose and simulate an efficient interference cancellation scheme with an optimal ordering successive interference cancellation (SIC) algorithm for ultra wideband (UWB)/multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems in a wireless body area network (WBAN). When there are several wireless communication devices on a human body, multiple access interference (MAI) usually occurs. To mitigate the effect of MAI and achieve additional diversity gain, we utilize SIC with an optimal ordering algorithm. A zero correlation duration (ZCD) code with robust MAI capability is employed as a spread code for UWB systems in a multi-device WBAN environment. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated in terms of the bit error rate (BER). Simulation results confirm that the BER performance can be improved significantly if the proposed interference cancellation scheme and the ZCD code are jointly employed.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• 제17권5호
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• pp.453-462
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• 2015

Body area networks (BANs) have emerged as an enabling technique for e-healthcare systems, which can be used to continuously and remotely monitor patients' health. In BANs, the data of a patient's vital body functions and movements can be collected by small wearable or implantable sensors and sent using shortrange wireless communication techniques. Due to the shared wireless medium between the sensors in BANs, it may be possible to have malicious attacks on e-healthcare systems. The security and privacy issues of BANs are becoming more and more important. To provide secure and correct association of a group of sensors with a patient and satisfy the requirements of data confidentiality and integrity in BANs, we propose a novel enhanced secure sensor association and key management protocol based on elliptic curve cryptography and hash chains. The authentication procedure and group key generation are very simple and efficient. Therefore, our protocol can be easily implemented in the power and resource constrained sensor nodes in BANs. From a comparison of results, furthermore, we can conclude that the proposed protocol dramatically reduces the computation and communication cost for the authentication and key derivation compared with previous protocols. We believe that our protocol is attractive in the application of BANs.

• 인터넷정보학회논문지
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.9-18
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• 2014

인체에 부착된 센서들의 위치는 인간의 신체적 활동에 따라 자주 이동된다. 이에 따른 노드 위치 이동과 비가시선상의 문제들은 무선 인체 통신망에서 핫 스팟과 에너지 효율, 그리고 신뢰적인 통신 성능에 영향을 미친다. 우리는 빈번히 변화하는 네트워크 토폴로지와 채널 조건을 고려한 포워딩을 결정하는 방법을 제안하였다. 본 논문에서는 각 노드의 라우팅 레벨에서 입, 출력 링크들의 비율에 근거하여 포워딩 비율과 패킷들의 크기를 제어한다. 또한 패킷 크기와 포워딩 비율 제어를 지원하는 격자 기반의 연결을 확장함으로써 네트워크 토폴로지를 견고하게 한다. 본 논문의 시뮬레이션은 이러한 접근들이 네트워크 수명을 48.2% 증가시키는 것뿐 아니라 약 6.08%의 패킷 전달율의 증가가 있음을 증명한다. 또한 핫 스팟 문제도 본 제안을 통해 해결된다.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제7권5호
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• pp.1036-1057
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• 2013

Wireless body area network (WBAN) is a promising candidate for future health monitoring system. Nevertheless, the path to mature solutions is still facing a lot of challenges that need to be overcome. Energy efficient scheduling is one of these challenges given the scarcity of available energy of biosensors and the lack of portability. Therefore, researchers from academia, industry and health sectors are working together to realize practical solutions for these challenges. The main difficulty in WBAN is the uncertainty in the state of the monitored system. Intelligent learning approaches such as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) were proposed to tackle this issue. A Markov Decision Process (MDP) is a form of Markov Chain in which the transition matrix depends on the action taken by the decision maker (agent) at each time step. The agent receives a reward, which depends on the action and the state. The goal is to find a function, called a policy, which specifies which action to take in each state, so as to maximize some utility functions (e.g., the mean or expected discounted sum) of the sequence of rewards. A partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDP) is a generalization of Markov decision processes that allows for the incomplete information regarding the state of the system. In this case, the state is not visible to the agent. This has many applications in operations research and artificial intelligence. Due to incomplete knowledge of the system, this uncertainty makes formulating and solving POMDP models mathematically complex and computationally expensive. Limited progress has been made in terms of applying POMPD to real applications. In this paper, we surveyed the existing methods and algorithms for solving POMDP in the general domain and in particular in Wireless body area network (WBAN). In addition, the papers discussed recent real implementation of POMDP on practical problems of WBAN. We believe that this work will provide valuable insights for the newcomers who would like to pursue related research in the domain of WBAN.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.23-51
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• 2010

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have proved to be useful in applications that involve monitoring of real-time data. There is a wide variety of monitoring applications that can employ Wireless Sensor Network. Characteristics of a WSN, such as topology and scale, depend upon the application, for which it is employed. Security requirements in WSN vary according to the application dependent network characteristics and the characteristics of an application itself. Key management is the most important aspect of security as some other security modules depend on it. We discuss application dependent variations in WSN, corresponding changes in the security requirements of WSN and the applicability of existing key management solutions in each scenario.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제9권11호
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• pp.4436-4452
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• 2015

The IEEE 802.15.6 standard is introduced to satisfy all the requirements for monitoring systems operating in, on, or around the human body. In this paper, analytical models are developed for evaluating the performance of the IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA-based medium access control protocol for wireless body area networks (WBAN) under unsaturation condition. We employ a three-dimensional Markov chain to model the backoff procedure, and an M/G/1/K queuing system to describe the packet queues in the buffer. The throughput and delay performances of WBAN operating in the beacon mode are analyzed in heterogeneous network comprised of different user priorities. Simulation results are included to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed analytical model.

• 전기전자학회논문지
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.36-42
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• 2022

본 연구에서는 전기 신호 경로로서의 인체 채널에 대해 임펄스 응답 신호를 이용한 분석 결과를 제시한다. 최근, 인체 통신(human body communications)은 착용형 또는 임플란트형 센서 디바이스 간의 통신 방법으로 인체 영역 통신망(wireless body area networks)을 구성하는 효과적인 접근방법으로 제시되고 있다. 인체 통신 시스템 설계에 중요한 지침인 인체 채널 특성 제공을 위해, 자체 제작한 채널 응답측정장치를 사용하고 용량성 커플링(capacitive coupling) 특성에 적합한 실험환경을 구축하여 측정을 수행하고 그 분석한 결과를 제시한다. 측정 신호에 대한 신호처리 과정으로 임펄스 응답을 효과적으로 추출하여, 0 MHz에서 100 MHz 사이의 주파수 분석을 통해 평균 경로 손실 약 46.8 dB를 제시하고 주파수별 경로 손실 특성을 확인할 수 있다. 또한, 본 연구는 인체 통신 시스템의 수신기 신호 대 잡음비(signal-to-noise ratio) 예측을 위한 수신기 필터의 커패시터와 저항값 변화에 따른 전체 측정 주파수와 기저 대역 신호의 검출 성능 결정에 영향을 주는 3 MHz 이하 대역에서의 상대적인 잡음 전력을 제시하였다.