E-Health Telecommunication Systems and Networks, 2012, 1, 19-25 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/etsn.2012.12004 Published Online June 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/etsn) A WBAN for Human Movement Kinematics and ECG Measurements Ahmed Baraka, Ahmed Shokry, Ihab Omar, Saged Kamel, Tarek Fouad, Mohamad Abou El-Nasr, Heba Shaban Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport (AASTMT), Alexandria, Egypt Email: hshaban@vt.edu Received April 1, 2012; revised May 10, 2012; accepted May 26, 2012 ABSTRACT Biomedical applications of body area networks (BANs) are evolving, where taking periodic medical readings of pa- tients via means wireless technologies at home or in the office will aid physicians to periodically supervise the patient’s medical status without having to see the patient. Thus, one important objective of BANs is to provide the doctor with the medical readings that can be collected electronically without being in close proximity to the patient. This is done through the measurement of the patient’s physiological signals via means of wearable sensors. This paper investigates wireless BAN cooperation via actual measurements of human movement kinematics and electrocardiogram (ECG), which are believed to provide patients with easy healthcare for continuous health-monitoring. The collected information will be processed using specially designed software, which in turn will enable the patient to send a full medical chart to the physician’s electronic device. In this way, physicians will have the ability to monitor their patients more efficiently. Keywords: Body Area Networks (BANs); Electrocardiogram (ECG); Human Gait; and Movement Kinematics 1. Introduction Body area networks (BANs) are the systems of sensors/ devices that cooperate in close proximity to a person’s body to provide a benefit to the user. There are multiple applications of BANs including medical and non-medical applications. Recently, wireless technology has invaded the medical area of BANs with a wide range of capa- bilities. These applications typically use biomedical sen- sors to monitor the physiological signals of patients, such as electrocardiogram (ECG), blood oxygen level, blood pressures, blood glucose, body weight, heart rate, oxygen saturation, etc [1-6]. Wireless technology enables clinicians to monitor their patients’ remotely and give them timely health informa- tion and support. Especially, in emergency situations, real-time health parameter is crucial. According to the American Heart Association, treatment of a patient ex- periencing ventricular fibrillation within the first 12 mi- nutes of cardiac arrest brings a survival rate of 48% - 75%. On the other hand, long-term health-monitoring requires intensive and repetitive assessment that could last for months or even years to regain the lost functions, such as in the case of rehabilitation. Thus, one of the main challenges in such a case is being able to monitor patients for long-times in domestic environments. BANs provide a promising solution for such situations, however currently, BAN technology is emerging, and there are a lot of problems to address. One of the key challenges associated with BANs is the integration and coordination of multiple sensors with different applications [1-6]. This paper’s aim is to investigate wireless BAN co- operation for human movement tracking and ECG mea- surements, which are believed to provide patients with easy healthcare for continuous health-monitoring. In ad- dition, taking periodic medical readings at home or in the office will aid physicians to periodically supervise the patient’s medical status without having to see the patient via means wireless technologies. The collected mea- surement data will be processed using specially designed software, which will help sending a full medical record of the patient to an electronic device in the acquisition of the physician using wireless technology. Figure 1 shows a schematics diagram of the implemented WBAN. We consider a WBAN that uses wireless wearable sensors for gait kinematics and ECG measurements. The pro- posed WBAN is assumed to use commercially available noninvasive wireless sensors, as will be shown in detail in later sections. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains gait analysis, and gives a brief overview of its types and measurement parameters. Then, Section 3 provides a short overview of ECG. Section 4 describes the actual measurements. Future work is provided in Section 5, and Copyright © 2012 SciRes. ETSN