With recent advances in wireless communication, low-power miniaturized sensors and semiconductor technologies, the sensor networks have become the integral part of ubiquitous healthcare systems. They can be used to provide remote health monitoring for a long period of time with real-time feedback to the hospital. For example, a set of intelligent and low-power sensors can be seamlessly integrated in/on a human body to create an autonomous sensor network called a Body Area Network (BAN). The BAN can be used to stream biological information from the human body and transmit it over a long distance to a remote server for diagnostic recommendations. Some applications include diagnoses and treatment of many diseases including myocardial infarction, gastrointestinal tract, cancer detection, asthma, diabetes, and other health problems. Compared to traditional sensor networks, BANs face additional research challenges including signal propagation in/around a human body, power scavenging issues, fault tolerance, mobility, reliable MAC protocols, Quality of Service (QoS), biocompatibility and security.

This special issue invites high quality unpublished research papers and review articles that disseminate the state-of-the-art research and development on BANs for ubiquitous healthcare systems, articulate new perspectives, and highlight open issues and challenges. Topics of interest include, but not limited to:
1- Design and development of wireless implantable/wearable devices
2- Interactive and real time BANs
3- Low-power MAC protocols
4- In/On body propagation models
5- Low power MAC protocol design
6- In/On body Antenna design
7- Co-existence and interference mitigation
8- Platforms for BANs
9- Simulation models
10- BAN applications
11- Security mechanisms
12- Standardization of BAN

Papers must be submitted in English and should be formatted according to Springer guidelines (http://www.springer.com/statistics/life+sciences%2C+medicine+%26+health/journal/10916). The authors must present original work not published or currently under review in other journals or conferences. All submitted papers will be rigorously reviewed and evaluated on originality and suitability to the special issue.

Guest Editors

Sana Ullah, PhD (Corresponding editor), Inha University, 253 Yonghyun-dong, Nam-gu, Incheon (402-751), South Korea. Email: sanajcs@hotmail.com Tel. (+82)10-3145-3546

Kyung Sup Kwak, Director of UWB Communications Research Center, Prof. of School of Information & Communication Engineering, Inha University, 253 Yonghyun-dong, Nam-gu, Incheon (402-751), South Korea

M. R. Al-Mulla, Inhabited Intelligent Environments Group, School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester - Essex CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom