Wireless Sensor Networks for Real-time Healthcare Monitoring (Y.W. Leung et al.)


Fig. 1. A typical healthcare monitoring system.

Healthcare is one of the fastest growing industries in the world because the elderly population has been increasing. Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a promising approach to healthcare monitoring (e.g., real-time monitoring of patients and early detection of emergency conditions and diseases). A typical healthcare monitoring system has four subsystems: 1) patients with body area networks (BAN), 2) personal area networks (PAN), 3) Internet and cloud, and 4) remote users. In BAN, wearable and implantable sensors are placed on patients’ bodies for monitoring physiological signals (e.g., heartbeat). PAN is composed of mobile devices and environmental sensors deployed around, such as RFID readers, video sensors, temperature sensors and tracking sensors (for localization purpose). With the aid of PAN, BAN can provide more powerful monitoring to meet various requirements of healthcare applications. The monitoring data is transmitted to the Internet and is processed in a cloud system. Remote users such as caregivers and doctors can obtain real-time information of the patients via the Internet. This project aims to develop efficient communication techniques for BAN and PAN that support real-time healthcare monitoring and thus enhance the quality of life for the elderly, children and chronically ill people.



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Grant Support:

A subproject of this proposal titled “Maximizing Lifetime of Sensor-Target Surveillance in Wireless Sensor Networks” was supported by the Research Grants Council (RGC), Hong Kong SAR, China (Project No. HKBU211009).


For further information on this research topic, please contact Prof. Yiu-Wing Leung.