Reliable and privacy-preserving wireless body-area sensor networks for e-health monitoring

随着婴儿潮一代继续老龄化，医疗成本一直在飙升。与标准的传统医疗保健相比，远程电子健康监测在减少急诊室就诊和/或住院方面很有希望。随着无线通信和网络技术的进步，人体无线传感器网络正在成为监测患者健康和疾病进展的一种新方法。本研究项目致力于开发适用于电子医疗的无线体域传感器网络。它将开发一套新的网络解决方案，用于节能、可靠和保护隐私的无线信息传输，并考虑到独特的传播特性和严格的网络性能要求。它将(I)分析和开发具有潜在中继节点和协作通信的网络拓扑，以保证信息传输的可靠性；(Ii)开发介质访问控制方案，以在身体区域传播环境中实现传感器节点的高能量效率；以及(Iii)开发信息安全和隐私保护协议，这些协议对于在患者和医疗保健提供者之间传输敏感的患者保健信息和身份至关重要。

Healthcare costs have been skyrocketing as the baby boom generation continues to grey. Remote e-health monitoring has been shown to be promising for decreasing emergency room visits and/or hospitalizations, as compared to standard traditional healthcare. With the advancement of wireless communications and networking technology, wireless sensor networks on human body are emerging as a new approach to monitoring patient health and disease progression. This research project focuses on development of wireless body area sensor networks for e-healthcare applications. It will develop a new set of networking solutions for power-efficient, reliable, and privacy-preserving wireless information delivery, taking account of the unique propagation characteristics and strict networking performance requirements. It will (i) analyze and develop network topology with potential relay node and cooperative communications to guarantee reliability in information transfer, (ii) develop a medium access control scheme to achieve high energy efficiency for sensor nodes in a body-area propagation environment, and (iii) develop information security and privacy preservation protocols that are critical for transmitting sensitive patient healthcare information and identity between the patient and healthcare providers.