A group of French companies and research institutes have announced a new effort to develop standards for BAN — Body Area Networks.

The ARN BANET project includes 9 companies and academic institutions united to develop miniaturized wireless networking components designed for medical and sports-related devices like pacemakers or motion-tracking devices.

According to the press release, BANET is attempting to define the following:

BANET project aims at completing essential gaps and shortcomings of the
body area network state-of-the-art, by providing:

- a precise knowledge of the wireless BAN propagation channel in a wide
set of configurations which includes antenna design aspects ;

- a thorough justification of an air interface and MAC protocol choice
able to tackle essential requirements in radio link availability, bit
rate, power consumption, quality of service ;

- a study on coexistence of a BAN network in an environment made of other
BAN networks and other wireless systems ;

- a study of advantages brought by the coordination of BAN networks and
by the use of diversity on the body ;
The BANET project will also take into account the regulatory rules when
using radio devices around the body or as implants, which are essential in
terms of radio spectrum and biological issues.

The group intends to submit its findings to the IEEE 802 group for incorporation into international networking standards.

The bottom line here is that these types of networks are a key to the success of many motion-sensing applications — particularly in applications (like motion sensors used for athletic training monitoring or for rehab applications) where existing networking protocols like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth are too power intensive or don’t provide adequate data rates. We’ll be watching this effort closely — too many vendors are “stuck” using proprietary wireless systems today, which is holding back development of new applications of the technology.