ETSI TC SmartBAN: Overview of the wireless body area network standard

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the European level standard proposal for smart wireless body area networks (WBAN). Under the mandate of European Telecommunication Standards Institute ETSI, a technical committee TC SmartBAN was formed in 2013. The goal of the TC SmartBAN is to define a standard for low power devices and networks to be used in short range links supporting, e.g., healthcare, wellness and sport relating applications operating around a human body. The main focus areas were in physical and medium access control layers' specifications as well as efficient data presentation format for information delivery. Moreover, experimental measurement campaigns to characterize radio channel occupancy in the specified SmartBAN frequency range have been carried out. The actual work is divided into several, parallel Work Items (WI). Within this paper, a short overview of the ETSI TC SmartBAN work is given. The components of the SmartBAN standard are described in their own dedicated papers.