Medical BANs
- Toumaz: wireless digital plaster; externally-worn disposable medical BANs for measuring blood pH, glucose, oxygen levels, and temperature
- CardioMEMs: implantable wireless sensing devices less than one tenth the size of a dime for monitoring heart failure, aneurysms, and hypertension
A consumer application of BANs is health activity monitors such as the FitBit, DirectL ife, and WIN Human Recorder, and to some extent smart phones. All contain accelerometers that can measure movement and activity.
The next phases of BANs could be enabled by continued electronics miniaturization and next-generation communications networks (WiMAX, 4G, and beyond). In the farther future, BANs could include larger more complex networks of intercommunicating sensors and eventually autonomous sensors with two-way broadcast.
Biocompatibility and bandwidth are important concerns for human-machine integration interfaces, particularly implanted interfaces. However, the biggest challenge is energy, providing adequate ongoing power to devices. Several interesting methods of power generation are being investigated including thermal, vibrational, radio frequency (RF), photovoltaic (PV), and bio-chemical energy. ATP could possibly provide power to implanted devices, for example using DNA nanotechnology to synthesize ATP with nanoscale rotary motors, or nanodevices to produce ATP from naturally circulating glucose.