Smart eEvironments Wireless Sensor Networks

Question: Discuss about the Smart eEvironments for Wireless Sensor Networks. Answer: Introduction Over the past decade, it has been observed a tremendous development to the wireless communication technology. There has been a standard for the wireless communication, which has been developed over the past years (Al-Karaki and Kamal, 2004). A brand of the wireless communication technology, which is gaining prominence each day, is the Wireless Sensor Networks. The WSN have evolved over the years especially with the growth in the micro-Electro-Mechanical systems development for the smart sensors. Because of these innovative applications of the WSN technologies, there has been evolution of the applications. Some of the applications of the WSN include the medical monitoring, the emergence response and the infrastructure protection and optimization. In this paper, it will focus on the medical applications of the WSN (Al-Karaki and Kamal, 2004). The WSN has become a useful tool that has been used in the health care for the monitoring of the patients. It has been utilized for the monitorin g of the patients body vital signs both in the hospitals as well as at home (Buettner,Yee, Anderson and Han, 2006). Various wireless sensor based systems have been designed for monitoring remotely of the patients. There has been research, which has been underway in the development of more efficient systems to aid the remote monitoring of imperative conditions of the patients. Despite of the marked development, which has been achieved in the wireless sensor technologies, there still exists of some of the challenges that have hindered the effective as well as efficient utilization of the WSNs. Some of these challenges have been the interoperability, the privacy as well as security. This research project is aimed to highlight the application of the wireless sensor networks in the biomedical. This research will be achieved through a careful as well as a guided literature review, which broaden on the application off the WSN in the biomedical and healthcare. In order to give an insight of the WSN, provision of the wireless sensor network will be considered. Some prototype of the wireless sensor based monitoring systems will be discussed and at the end, a prospect and the future of the advancement of the wireless sensor network in the biomedical are highlighted. Literature review There are a number of the reviews of the literature on the broadfield on the WSN abound. Nonetheless, this section focusses on the literature, which relates to the applications of the wireless sensor network in the application in the biomedical in line with the objective of the research (Buettner, Yee, Anderson and Han, 2006). According to Bonato (2010) highlights that there are benefits, which are accruable from the field of monitoring of the patients with the Parkinson disease early in 90s. The limitation of the technology at that time inhibited the realization of this potential. Bonato has stressed that the researchers have continuously worked towards the development of unobtrusive ways of monitoring of the vital signs with much focus to the cardiac activity. Their concerted efforts to the design as well as the development of the biomedical sensors. The biomedical sensors are mainly used in the health monitoring applications and the electrocardiograms. As a result of the increase of the viral body signs to be monitored simultaneously, many of the biomedical sensors should work together in order to collect measurement as the same time. It is significant to communicate the data, which has been measured from the device that is sensing to others. It is important to have a network of communicating the biomedical sensors. This could have a radical impact on the quality of the life of the patient as well as their success treatment rates. There has been a long history of using the sensors in the medicine and the public health (Yang, 2014). The medical sensors usually combine transducers for detecting of the electrical, genetic as well as other physical origin with the signal processing algorithms in order to estimate features indicative of the person health status. According to Rashid (2008) defined that the wireless biomedical sensor Network as the convergence of the biosensors, the wireless communication and the network technologies, which consists of the collecti on of the wireless networked low power biosensor. Overview of the biomedical sensor networks The sensors have always been used in the biomedical. There are certain requirements, which are expected of the wireless biomedical sensor, such as the wearability, security and reliability. Wearability entails the biomedical sensor to be small as well as lightweight. The size off the sensor is usually directly proportional to the size of the battery. It is important that the biomedical sensor is reliable in order to operate as much as expected and communicate data to a manner that is reliable. Moreover, the biomedical sensor should provide privacy as well as data integrity. Security is a major challenge to the sensor networks. The WBSN have emerged as the design solution for various monitoring applications. WBSN usually represent a special case especially for the wireless body area networks which has great potential for the continuous monitoring in the ambulatory settings,, wellness monitoring, the early detection of the abnormal conditions, and the supervised rehabilitation. The advances of the WBAN technologies is usually driven through the development I the ubiquitous computing. The WBSN based system usually provide the real time warning, guidance as well as the computer assisted rehabilitation. Through continuous monitoring of the system, it will provide significant larger collection of data, which could be revolutionized using diagnosed procedure as well as the wellness management. Presence of the long term monitoring of the trends could provide a detection of the early signs for the deterioration of the health of the users. For the computer assisted rehabilitation the applications long term monitorin g could indicate progress as well as guide. The WBSNs could are in three types based on the decision taker of the data which is collected from the various sensor nodes. One is the managed WBSN, which the decision on the data collected from one or the three party that can be any doctor or perhaps a nurse takes more than the sensor nodes. The advantage of the managed WBSN lies on the fact that all the vital signs could be analyzed and at the same time, the diagnosis could be done. Another type is the autonomous WBSN, which has actuators along with the sensor nodes could cause the action on the human body as per the data that is collected from the sensor nodes with the human body without the need to wait for the third party decisions. The last type is the intelligent WBSN, which is the combination of both the above networks. In the event that the situation are simple, the decisions are usually taken on their own by use of the actuator nodes but if they are complex the data is sent to t he third person. The operating details of WBSN The WBSN is usually composed of the wearable computing devices that are used for the operation of the healthcare facility. It has been found that the data from the sensors it is usually sent to the servers through use of the radio frequency (Lewis, 2004). The sensors can usually be used both internally as well as externally of the body of a patients. This means that they could be wearable devices or they could be implanted inside the body of the patients. The WBSN used in the WBSN usually consists of the extra body or the intrabody data communication. The data is essentially sent to a personal device from the sensor and afterwards the data is transferred to the server of the healthcare facility. When the data reaches the server, the medical care facility can thus monitor as well as diagnose on the health of that particular patients who has those ailments. The wireless sensor networks usually facilitate the dense spatiotemporal sampling of the physical, cognitive as well as the behavioral process in the spaces that ranges from the personal spaces within the buildings. Some of the application for the WSNs include the data mining for the medical research, patient monitoring, monitoring of the mass casualty disaster, at home monitoring and the medication intake monitoring of the medication the following parts highlights the section of the application. Data mining for the research in medical The wireless sensor networks has become revolutionized in the medical data mining. The body sensor, which has been coupled with the internet-enabled devices, have been continuously enabled in order to collect medical data from a distribution of the subjects as they lead their daily lives (Yang, 2014). The ability of the wireless sensor network usually provide information to the state of the subject that could not be measured for the aid of the assisted computer retrospective techniques for the medical data mining (Yu, Iyer, Kim and Kim, 2004). The purpose of the WSN to the data mining has become prominent in a way that medical institution have hatched plans in order to deploy sensing tools to measure objectively the measure to exposure to the environment. As individuals age, there is usually a decline to their ability of the sensory as well as the motor capabilities (Buettner,Yee, Anderson and Han, 2006). A point is usually reached where they could not take care of themselves and they may require assistance in order to carry their daily living. Based on Ko et al (2010) there is usually an emergency of the new intelligent assistive devices which harness information in regards to information to the patients both the physical as well as the physiological states through which the sensor that are embedded in the device worn or perhaps the implant to the patients and the surrounding. The wireless sensing technology has helped in the development and the assistive of the device with the features that are added such as the way of finding as well as navigation (Lewis, 2004). There are some system, which have been developed to help with the issue of the aged care. They are essentially developed in order to monitor the activities of the individua ls who are elderly such as watching television, or sleeping to detect the odd conditions and alert when they may require assistance (Buettner,Yee, Anderson and Han, 2006). Such system could include the work, which has been done by Lu and Fu (2009), and the caregiver assistant developed by Philipose (2004). With the use of these devices, the healthcare professionals are able to notice in any deviations in the activities of the individuals who are elderly and monitor through a careful analysis. An interesting application of the wireless sensors in the healthcare is the use of the HipGuard (Lewis, 2004). It is essentially a posture detection system, which has been designed for the patient who are recovering from the hip replacement operations. This application has been designed to be used at the home especially the period of recovery of around eight to twelve weeks after an operation has been done (Wang and Wang, 2012). There is a point of central processing unit, which is placed on the pants, and it collects as well as analyses on the data from the sensor and this helps to alert the user when the load limit has been reached on the operated hip (Yu, Iyer, Kim and Kim, 2004). The user is essentially alerted through the audible beep, the haptic vibration, or perhaps both depending on the choice of the user. Medication intake of monitoring application One of the phenomenon, which is common to the elderly patient, is the failure of taking medication as and when it is due. Some of these individuals usually forget to take their medication while others could deliberately refuse to do so. The WSNs could be of help especially when it comes to the monitoring of the medication intake of the patients. Some of the prototypes of the system have been done in order to help achieve this. Such prototype is the iPackage (Megerian and Potkonjak, 2003). This system essentially have the capability of performing both the function of the remote medication intake monitoring as well as the vital signs monitoring. The use of this prototype has used an array of the controlled (Delamination, Sivalingam and Znati, 2006). The iPackage usually controls the dosage as well as uses the RFID for the purpose of identification for the correct pill. Certain conditions such as diabetes, cognitive heart failures, obesity as well as the memory loss are some of the ailments, which are difficult to monitor. Individuals who are suffering from any of the conditions should not necessary stay at the hospital (Karl, Mattern and Rm?er, 2006). Taking a role that is active in monitoring could significantly benefit the patients who may be suffering from any of these conditions (Pottie, 1998). The wireless sensors, which are embedded in or perhaps carried on some individuals who may be suffering from these conditions, could be used for the provision of the real time data on their physical as well as psychological states off the patient. The caregivers to make useful inference points on ways on how to manage these conditions could use this (Raghavendra, Sivalingam and Znati, 2006). The use of this data could be used for the early detection as well as intervention. This is an economical way of managing such conditions and other age related ailme nts. Challenges of WSNs in Biomedical There are various challenges, which may prevent optimum utilization of the wireless sensing technologies in the healthcare. Some of the challenges have been explored as below: Energy is one of the major problem, which has been associated with the sensor network. Since the sensor nodes usually relies on the batteries of the power, it can become a problem to provide a stable power to the nodes since the batteries usually run out at some instance (Townsend and Arms, 2005). According to Alemdar (2010), highlighted that use of the rechargeable batteries could be the remedy for the environment in the indoors (Polastre, Szewczyk, Mainwaring, Culler and Anderson, 2004). Nonetheless, they point out they may not work with the individuals who are elderly since they could forget to recharge them. Another challenge of WSNs is the issue of security. This is another critical aspect with the use of the wireless sensor in the biomedicine. The security aspects and the requirements of the wireless sensor based system for monitoring usually advocate confidentiality, accountability as well as the access of control (Mainwaring, Culler, Polastre, Szewczyk and Anderson, 2002). The low power WSN are usually prone to attacks of security due to the reasons such as the strict resources constraint of the sensor devices and the unreliable nature of the low power wireless communication. With such vulnerabilities, it could be possible for the attackers to access the network and they could even modify in order to access the networks rights. This could have consequences such as the patient being denied treatment or perhaps given the wrong treatment (Karl, Mattern and Rm?er, 2006). Another challenge of the wireless sensor monitoring systems in the biomedicine is the aspect of privacy (Ye, Heidemann and Estrin, 2002). Attacker may attack these systems and steal useful information. In order to counter these attacks one could use hybrid schemes. Others have suggested that the use of the laws and the principle of the consents could be used to control the flow of the data to the third parties (Mainwaring, Culler, Polastre, Szewczyk and Anderson, 2002). Moreover, the medical institution could use privacy enhancement technologies in the wireless sensor systems as well as proper implementation of the privacy effects assessments, which are supposed to be carried out by the qualified individual. Prospects of the wireless sensor networks in the biomedical There has been numerous research, which has been carried out in order to overcome the major obstacles of energy, privacy as well as the security issues in the wireless sensor networks. The future will see a rise in the application of the sensing especially for the cancer detection (Guy, 2006). The research work has already been underway in order to develop the sensors to be able to be used in detecting of the cancerous tumors by the equipping these sensor with the ability of distinguishing the different between the types of cells. The wireless biomedical sensors will be used for monitoring of the level of the glucose (Guy, 2006). It has been hoped that instead of picking constantly a finger in the blood, use of a biosensor might monitor the level of the glucose and transmit these results to the wristwatch for example. For the patients who are asthmatic it has been projected the use of the wireless sensor network could be used to monitor the allergic agents which is in the air and thi s could alert the physicians or perhaps the patients themselves in the events there are agents which have trigged an attack in air (Pottie, 1998). Another development, which has been found to be promising, is the plan of incorporating the IP to the WSNs (Karlof and Wagner, 2003). There has been research, which is undergoing in the direction and it has been found to be fruitful from the results that has been gotten. Further, there are research of miniaturizing of the size of the wearable sensor technologies with the use of robots, which is the future prospects for the WSNs in the biomedical. It is from this hope will the life of the patient be made easier and complication caused by the stroke be minimized. Conclusion The wireless sensor technologies have attracted many researchers over the past decade. The reason for this field has been attributed to the benefits, which have been found to accrue through utilization efficiently of the WSNs. The wireless sensor systems usually have been found in the application in the biomedical as well as healthcare, which has been used for gathering of data for the medical research as well as biomedical monitoring. The challenge, which has been associated with the wireless sensor in the biomedical, is surmountable. Due to the large volume of data that has been conducted in this field there is hope to overcome these challenges. There is a great prospect for the wireless sensor in the biomedical. The wireless sensor systems could become ubiquitous and this will alter on the practices of the health sector. The recommendation I could provide is that research effort should be channeled towards the miniaturizing of the biomedical sensors. If it would be possible the sensor were made to be nano-scale dimensions this could make the biomedical sensing systems to be less obstrusive and the mobility of the user provided. References Akyildiz, I.F., Su, W., Sankarasubramaniam, Y. and Cayirci, E., 2002. Wireless sensor networks: a survey. Computer networks, 38(4), pp.393-422. Al-Karaki, J.N. and Kamal, A.E., 2004. Routing techniques in wireless sensor networks: a survey. IEEE wireless communications, 11(6), pp.6-28. Buettner, M., Yee, G.V., Anderson, E. and Han, R., 2006, October. X-MAC: a short preamble MAC protocol for duty-cycled wireless sensor networks. In Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Embedded networked sensor systems (pp. 307-320). ACM. Guy, C., 2006, November. Wireless sensor networks. In Sixth International Symposium on Instrumentation and Control Technology: Signal Analysis, Measurement Theory, Photo-Electronic technology, and Artificial Intelligence (pp. 63571I-63571I). International Society for Optics and Photonics. Karlof, C. and Wagner, D., 2003. Secure routing in wireless sensor networks: Attacks and countermeasures. Ad hoc networks, 1(2), pp.293-315. Karl, H., Mattern, F. and Rm?er, K., 2006. Wireless Sensor Networks. Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg Lewis, F.L., 2004. Wireless sensor networks. Smart environments: technologies, protocols, and applications, pp.11-46. Mainwaring, A., Culler, D., Polastre, J., Szewczyk, R. and Anderson, J., 2002, September. Wireless sensor networks for habitat monitoring. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM international workshop on Wireless sensor networks and applications (pp. 88-97). Acm. Megerian, S. and Potkonjak, M., 2003. Wireless sensor networks. Encyclopedia of Telecommunications. Perrig, A., Stankovic, J. and Wagner, D., 2004. Security in wireless sensor networks. Communications of the ACM, 47(6), pp.53-57. Polastre, J., Szewczyk, R., Mainwaring, A., Culler, D. and Anderson, J., 2004. Analysis of wireless sensor networks for habitat monitoring. In Wireless sensor networks (pp. 399-423). Springer US. Pottie, G.J., 1998, June. Wireless sensor networks. In Information Theory Workshop, 1998 (pp. 139-140). IEEE. Raghavendra, C.S., Sivalingam, K.M. and Znati, T. eds., 2006. Wireless sensor networks. Springer. Townsend, C. and Arms, S., 2005. Wireless sensor networks. MicroStrain, Inc, 20(9), pp.15-21. Wang, Y.G. and Wang, Z.B., 2012. Wireless sensor networks. Com (3), pp.334-341. Yang, K., 2014. Wireless sensor networks. Principles, Design and Applications. Ye, W., Heidemann, J. and Estrin, D., 2002. An energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks. In INFOCOM 2002. Twenty-first annual joint conference of the IEEE computer and communications societies. Proceedings. IEEE (Vol. 3, pp. 1567-1576). IEEE. Yu, H., Iyer, J., Kim, H. and Kim, E.J., 2004. Wireless sensor networks.