1st Invitational Workshop: Body Area Network Technology and Applications

In the past decade, wireless sensor networks have emerged as one of the industries showing great potential to stimulate the US economy. One of the most promising areas of economic growth in pervasive health information technology is wireless Body Area Networks (BAN).  As a reflection of this growing interest and the evolution of BAN technologies, there has been global interest in innovative research directed at BAN to shape the industry for the needs of the 21st century. A vital part of this effort concerns fostering collaboration and consensus-building among researchers, manufacturers, and medical consumers on a variety of BAN techniques and applications.  The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Center for Wireless Information Network Studies (CWINS) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are hosting this invitational workshop to gather a unique mix of top researchers in BAN from the private sector, academia and government agencies as well as business leaders and application engineers.  Participants will discuss executive-level perspectives on the future of this industry, including trends in technology, and will explore the emerging standards and new applications. The objective of the workshop is to define a vision for the integration of BAN with existing wireless technologies and to discuss how we should shape our industry to meet this vision..