A Survey on Biofeedback and Actuation in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs)

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) have attained increasing popularity as the next generation framework of wearable technologies for human monitoring. Invasive or noninvasive wearable sensors designed in a WBAN are worn to gather vital information. Biofeedback is a recent concept where collected data are used to generate actuation signals in WBANs. Applications can be seen in various areas such as sports (e.g., locomotor velocity) or medicine (e.g., blood pressure measurement). However, since the body is closely regulated, the next generation WBAN technology must be smart enough to react to monitored data. The main aim of this paper is to review the current state of biofeedback and actuation technology on WBANs in terms of its structure, applications, benefits, and control approaches. The emphasis on the specific requirements when applying biofeedback to humans will be highlighted and discussed. Challenges and open research issues will be concluded at the end.