Developing a bioeffect metric for wireless biomedical sensor networks

The adverse biological effects may be caused by wireless biosensor networks in long term monitoring. This is the first paper that specifically derives a bioeffect metric to evaluate the performance of wireless biosensor networks in terms of health effect consideration. This paper investigates the bioeffects caused by radiofrequency transmission of sensor node, including thermal effects and athermal effects. The bioeffects model is studied in both near-field and far-field, in relation to Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). The main contribution of this work is that a normalized bioeffect metric, equivalent Coefficient-of-Absorption-and-Bioeffects (CAB), is derived to evaluate and design the communication protocols for wireless biosensor networks. After analyzing the simulation results, we identify the factors that can reduce the adverse health effects when designing the communication system. Finally we suggest that a bioeffect aware power scheduling algorithm is paramount for the system.