Towards Key Issues of Disaster Aid based on Wireless Body Area Networks

With recent advances in wireless communication and low-power miniaturized biomedical sensor and semiconductor technologies, wireless body area networks (WBAN) has become an integral part of the disaster aid system. Wearable vital sign sensors can track patients' status and location, thus enhancing disaster rescue efficiency. In the past few years, most of the literatures in the area of disaster aid system based on WBAN have focused on issues concerning wireless sensor design, sensor miniaturization, energy efficiency and communication protocols. In this paper, we will give an overview of disaster aid, discuss about the types of network communication as well as outline related issues. We will emphasize on analyzing six key issues in employing the disaster aid system. Finally, we will also highlight some of the challenges that still need to be addressed in the future in order to help the disaster aid system be truly and widely accepted by the public.