Wireless Sensor Networks with QoS for e-Health and e-Emergency Applications

Oscar Gama1, Paulo Carvalho1, J. A. Afonso2 and P. M. Mendes2

Universidade do Minho, Campus de Gualtar1
Departamento de Informática
P-4710-057 Braga, Portugal

E-mail: {osg,pmc} at di.uminho.pt

Universidade do Minho, Campus de Azurém2
Departamento de Electrónica Industrial
P-4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal

E-mail: {jose.afonso,paulo.mendes} at dei.uminho.pt


Abstract

Most body sensor networks (BSN) only offer best-effort service delivery, which may compromise the successful operation of emergency healthcare (e-emergency) applications. Due to its real-time nature, e-emergency systems must provide quality of service (QoS) support, in order to provide a pervasive, valuable and fully reliable assistance to patients with risk abnormalities. But what is the real meaning of QoS support within the e-emergency context? What benefits can QoS mechanisms bring to e-emergency systems, and how are they being deployed? In order to answer these questions, this paper firstly discusses the need of QoS in personal wireless healthcare systems, and then presents an overview of such systems with QoS. A case-study requiring QoS support, intended to be deployed in a healthcare unit, is presented, as well as an asynchronous medium access TDMA-based model. 
EHST 2008, Porto, Portugal, 2008