Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 7:30 pm
Location: Room M-114, Stanford University Medical School
Optional dinner location: Stanford Hospital Cafeteria, 6:15 PM (no host, no reservations)
TITLE: Emerging Body Area Network standard, IEEE 802.15.6
Arthur Astrin, PhD
ASTRIN RADIO
ABSTRACT:
Body Area Networks (BAN) devices operate in close vicinity to, on, or inside body and can enable a wide range of applications, including medical support, healthcare monitoring and consumer electronics with increased convenience or comfort. Due to strong demands of medical, healthcare and information technology industries, IEEE was requested to standardize the Body Area Network. IEEE 802.15 task group 6 (TG6) was set up to develop an IEEE international standard for BAN in January 2008. This talk reviews major issues, history and current status of TG6. Early on, the TG6 invited representatives from industry to present applications which require body area networks. We then developed an application matrix, and summarized it into a single document, which was issued to proposers. The proposers were asked to propose a communication protocol that would accommodate this application summary document. The other issue facing TG6 was to have a detail understanding of available spectrum for BANs. And finally we needed at an accurate model of the channel; in this case the human body. This channel is much more difficult than free space/air to measure and to correctly model. The draft of the standard is in Sponsor Ballot stage and is being worked on by the team. We expect comments resolution in the next IEEE 802 meeting and completion of the standard in 2012.
Dr. Astrin received the Ph.D. E.E. from U.C.L.A. in Communication Engineering in 1984. He has worked for Apple Computer, Inc., IBM (100% club), Siemens, ROLM, Memorex and Citicorp in technical and management positions, where he developed several computer and communication systems. At Apple, he assisted in birthing the Wi-Fi industry, delivering first consumer oriented, wireless solution to the PC industry – AirPort, as well as creating industry compatibility with the Wi-Fi testing organization. In 1969 he built world’s first DSP and hardware FFT processor. He also has been a professor at SJSU and UC Berkeley, teaching communication and computer engineering. Keeping one foot in academic world has allowed him to work on theoretical engineering problems, such as coexistence of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless communications, as well as mentoring many students into the Silicon Valley industry. He is the Chair of the IEEE Information Theory Group in Santa Clara, a recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, the 2011 recipient of the Hans Karlsson award and a Senior Member of IEEE. He was a member of Bluetooth SIG and has been a member of IEEE 802.11/15 standards committee since 1997. He currently chairs the Body Area Network Task Group 6 of IEEE 802.15. Dr. Astrin has seven patents and one in the process.
