Design of Wireless Body Area Network with Motion Sensors Using New Materials

Motion detection plays a critical role in wireless body area networks (WBANs) to facilitate patients for physical rehabilitation after an injury or illness. In this paper, we develop motion sensors with new materials and apply these new sensors to monitor motions of fingers as a demonstration. The new materials are low-cost active materials for motion sensors with high compressibility and sensitivity. We design and implement a flexible two-tier WBAN system to remotely monitor and display the motion information of fingers. The system is composed of wireless sensor nodes, wireless receiver, database, Web server, and HMIs. System integration and performance demonstration are conducted. Results show that the proposed WBAN system is capable of remotely detecting finger motions. Furthermore, the proposed WBAN system can be easily extended in other applications by adopting desired sensors.