Intrabody Communications (IBC) as an Alternative Proposal for Biomedical Wearable Systems

Abstract

Many times, medical monitoring requires the use of wires that connect patients with monitoring devices and reduce their mobility and comfort at the same time that hamper the work of doctors and medical staff. The development of transmissions technologies based on wireless communications standards, like Bluetooth or Zigbee, does not conform optimal solutions to develop the communication links in the biomedical wearable systems because of the situation of overexploitation and saturation of the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency bands, and also due to the consumption of their transceivers. This chapter presents both theoretical and application aspects of Intrabody Communications Technology (IBC) as an optimum solution for wireless communications in the wearable biomedical monitoring domain, which overcomes the previous inconveniences. The chapter is addressed by referencing dense scientific literature of the IBC technologies evolution till nowadays.