Body Sensor Networks: From Theory to Emerging Applications

The use of sensor networks for healthcare, well-being, and working in extreme environments has long roots in the engineering sector in medicine and biology community. With the maturity of wireless sensor networks, body area networks (BANs), and wireless BANs (WBANs), recent efforts in promoting the concept of body sensor networks (BSNs) aim to move beyond sensor connectivity to adopt a system-level approach to address issues related to biosensor design, interfacing, and embodiment, as well as ultralow-power processing/communication, power scavenging, autonomic sensing, data mining, inferencing, and integrated wireless sensor microsystems. As a result, the system architecture based on WBAN and BSN is becoming a widely accepted method of organization for ambulatory and ubiquitous monitoring systems. This editorial paper presents a snapshot of the current research and emerging applications and addresses some of the challenges and implementation issues.