The design and implementation of a wireless healthcare application for WSN-enabled IMS environments

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is one of the key components of third generation (3G) networks, while Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are an emerging type of networks formed by a set of distributed sensor nodes that collaborate to monitor environmental and physical conditions. Combining the capabilities of WSNs and the IMS opens the door to a wide range of personalized and adaptive value added services for 3G users. We have previously proposed a solution for WSN/IMS integration. This solution enriches the IMS architecture with context acquisition and management components, and enables access to those capabilities via standard IMS interfaces. Wireless healthcare is one of the important application areas that can benefit from the combined IMS/WSNs capabilities. In this paper, we focus on this application area and present a case study on the design and implementation of a context-aware IMS wireless healthcare application, that leverages the capabilities of our WSN/IMS integration solution. The application´s detailed scenario and IMS deployment architecture are presented and a prototype is built and tested using Ericsson´s IMS simulated environment.