ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)

Smart Body Area Network (SmartBAN); Technical Report on Smart Coordinator for SmartBAN Networks

DTR/SmartBAN-0021

General Information

• Status: Not Published
• Technical Committee: SmartBAN - Smart Body Area Network
• Current Stage: 12 - Citation in the OJ (auto-insert)
• Due Date: 25-Dec-2023
• Completion Date: 29-Nov-2023

Standards Content (Sample)

TECHNICAL REPORT
Smart Body Area Network (SmartBAN);
Technical Report on Smart Coordinator
for SmartBAN Networks
2 ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)

Reference
DTR/SmartBAN-0021
Keywords
air interface, wireless ad-hoc network
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3 ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)
Contents
Intellectual Property Rights . 5
Foreword . 5
Modal verbs terminology . 5
Executive summary . 6
Introduction . 6
1 Scope . 7
2 References . 7
2.1 Normative references . 7
2.2 Informative references . 7
3 Definition of terms, symbols, and abbreviations . 7
3.1 Terms . 7
3.2 Symbols . 7
3.3 Abbreviations . 7
4 Outlook of smart coordinator . 8
4.1 Functionalities at a glance . 8
4.2 Data traffic between the smart coordinator and the infrastructure . 9
4.3 Service flows . 10
4.4 Smart coordinator high-level description . 10
4.4.0 General information smart coordinator high-level description . 10
4.4.1 KPIs . 11
4.4.2 New technologies . 11
4.5 SmartBAN generic architecture . 12
4.6 Reference model . 14
4.7 Control management . 15
4.8 Coexistence . 15
5 Cyber-security and privacy protection . 16
5.1 Introduction . 16
5.2 Threat model . 16
5.3 Security and trust model . 17
5.3.0 General information security and trust model . 17
5.3.1 SmartBAN ontology . 18
5.4 Low-power radio interface . 18
5.5 Cryptography in SmartBAN . 19
5.6 Authenticated Key Exchange protocol with one Diffie Hellman key exchange combined with digital
signature and proof of knowledge of discrete logarithm . 19
5.7 Ratchet-based key refreshing . 20
6 Smart coordinator data plane architecture . 20
6.1 Smart coordinator data service . 20
6.1.0 General information smart coordinator data service . 20
6.1.1 Higher layers . 20
6.1.1.0 General information higher layers . 20
6.1.1.1 Infrastructure Security Access Entity & L3 . 20
6.1.1.2 L3 Protocol discriminator . 20
6.1.1.3 Bridge convergence function . 20
6.1.1.4 Infrastructure Controlled & Uncontrolled access filtering . 21
6.1.1.5 TX MSDU rate limiting. . 21
6.1.1.6 TX Aggregation A-MSDU . 21
6.1.1.7 Sequence number assignment . 21
6.1.1.8 TX Fragmentation . 21
6.1.1.9 MPDU number assignment . 21
6.1.1.10 MPDU Payload Encryption . 21
6.1.1.11 Append MPDU Header & CRC . 21
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4 ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)
6.1.1.12 TX Aggregation A-MPDU . 21
Annex A (informative): Change history . 23
Annex B (informative): Bibliography . 24
History . 25

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5 ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)
Intellectual Property Rights
Essential patents
IPRs essential or potentially essential to normative deliverables may have been declared to ETSI. The declarations
pertaining to these essential IPRs, if any, are publicly available for ETSI members and non-members, and can be
found in ETSI SR 000 314: "Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Essential, or potentially Essential, IPRs notified to
ETSI in respect of ETSI standards", which is available from the ETSI Secretariat. Latest updates are available on the
ETSI Web server (https://ipr.etsi.org/).
Pursuant to the ETSI Directives including the ETSI IPR Policy, no investigation regarding the essentiality of IPRs,
including IPR searches, has been carried out by ETSI. No guarantee can be given as to the existence of other IPRs not
referenced in ETSI SR 000 314 (or the updates on the ETSI Web server) which are, or may be, or may become,
essential to the present document.
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Foreword
This Technical Report (TR) has been produced by ETSI Technical Committee Smart Body Area Network (SmartBAN).
The contents of the present document are subject to continuing work within the SmartBAN TB and may change
following formal TB approval. Should the TB change the contents of the present document, it will be re-released by the
TB with an identifying change of release date and an increase in version number as follows:
Version x. y. z
where:
x the first digit:
0 early working draft;
1 presented to the TB for information;
2 presented to the TB for approval;
3 or greater shows the TB-approved document under change control.
y the second digit is incremented for technical changes, corrections, or updates.
z the third digit is incremented for editorial changes.
Modal verbs terminology
In the present document "should", "should not", "may", "need not", "will", "will not", "can" and "cannot" are to be
interpreted as described in clause 3.2 of the ETSI Drafting Rules (Verbal forms for the expression of provisions).
"must" and "must not" are NOT allowed in ETSI deliverables except when used in direct citation.
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6 ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)
Executive summary
The present document lays out an outlook of the smart coordinator, potential service flows to infrastructure, generic
architecture, coexistence, cyber-security, and privacy protection.
Introduction
The present document provides information on the functionalities considered necessary and under consideration to
implement the next generation of SmartBAN functionality.

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7 ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)
1 Scope
The present document is limited to providing information about the smart coordinator operating at the link layer.
2 References
2.1 Normative references
Normative references are not applicable in the present document.
2.2 Informative references
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
The following referenced documents are not necessary for the application of the present document but they assist the
user with regard to a particular subject area.
[i.1] ETSI TS 103 325 (V1.1.1): "Smart Body Area Network (SmartBAN); Low Complexity Medium
Access Control (MAC) for SmartBAN".
[i.2] ETSI TS 103 326 (V1.2.1): "Smart Body Area Network (SmartBAN); Enhanced Ultra-Low Power
Physical Layer".
[i.3] ETSI TS 103 806 (V0.0.4): " Smart Body Area Network (SmartBAN); Hub to Hub
Communication for SmartBAN Medium Access Control (MAC)".
3 Definition of terms, symbols, and abbreviations
3.1 Terms
For the purposes of the present document, the following terms apply:
smart coordinator: device operating at the link layer that provides an interface to the MAC layer for operation over
multiple hubs for coexistence, a bridge to infrastructure domains, and cryptographic material and primitives
management
3.2 Symbols
Void.
3.3 Abbreviations
For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations apply:
ACI Adjacent Channel Interference
AEAD Authenticated Encryption with Additional Data
AES Advanced Encryption Standard
AI Artificial Intelligence
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8 ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)
AKE Authenticated Key Exchange
A-MPDU Aggregate MAC Protocol Data Unit
A-MSDU Aggregate MAC Service Data Unit
AP Access Point
AR/VR Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality
BCI Brain-Computer Interface
CPU Central Process Unit
CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check
DoS Denial of Service
EC Elliptic Curve
ECC Elliptic Curve Cryptography
ECDHE Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral
EdDSA Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm
HSM Hardware Security Module
ID Identity
IoT Internet of Things
IP Internet Protocol
ISM Industrial Scientific and Medical (frequency band)
ISS Internal Sublayer Service
KPI Key Performance Indicator
L2 Layer 2
L3 Layer 3
MAC Medium Access Control
MLDE MAC Layer Data Entity
MLME MAC Layer Management Entity
MPDU MAC Protocol Data Unit
MSDU MAC Service Data Unit
OSI Open System Interconnection
PER Packet Error Rate
PHY PHYsical layer
PII Personally Identifiable Information
PKI Public Key Infrastucture
PLDE PHY Layer Data Entity
PLME PHY Layer Management Entity
QoS Quality of Service
SAP Service Access Point
SC Smart Coordinator
SC2SC Smart Coordinator to Smart Coordinator
SCLC Smart Coordinator Link Control
SDR Software Defined Radio
SHA-3 Secure Hash 3
TSN Time Sensitive Networking
TX Transmitter
ZTA Zero Trust Architecture
4 Outlook of smart coordinator
4.1 Functionalities at a glance
Future healthcare and well-being systems will extend mobile services into new vertical application domains with
specific requirements for communication services and well-being services. Such new domain applications come with
demanding requirements, such as high availability, high reliability, low latency, and seamless integration into
infrastructure.
The technology in smart wristbands, watches, rings, patches, headbands, earplugs, chest-straps, smart clothing, shoe
insoles, and in-body sensors, are collectively called wearables. Such technology is measuring ever more aspects of daily
people's lives. Smartwatches collect millions of data points per day. People see themselves in ways not possible before
and are finding new ways to act on what they learn. The effect on healthcare and lifestyle can be profound.
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The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the process. Wearables entered the lives of more people and took on new roles.
With gyms closed, exercise shifted outdoors, and people bought them for the first time, to keep track of how much they
exercised.
A parallel trend was that many consumers began to see these devices as tracking specific areas of their health. People
had to be checked at home for healthcare reasons. Hospitals and nursing homes started seeing more elderly patients with
smartwatches to track their health and send alerts of any problems. Wearable technology is poised to be a seamless part
of clinical care, diagnosis, and, in some cases treatment. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based apps may process the
collected data from people's wearables dispensing personalized advice on what to eat or when to go for a walk or
exercise. Interactive apps backed up by clinical evidence are likely to prescribe treatment.
The wearables market will split into two categories: medical-grade devices approved by respective regulatory bodies for
people with chronic conditions who need tracking with greater care, and devices with fewer features and accuracy for
healthy people who want to keep an eye on their metrics and be able to spot a problem early. Leading manufacturers are
expected to offer increasingly specific devices for many diverse groups: children, the elderly, people with chronic
diseases, and healthy people.
Fulfilling that promise is the next step for SmartBAN. It is going beyond basic radio access. Building the best way to
transfer the communication flows to the infrastructure or the edge for processing and evaluation and how to coexist with
current technologies such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Note that the edge could be part of the infrastructure or a device at
home, a vehicle, or even on the body. The controlling device is named from now on, the smart coordinator.
Healthcare and well-being data will be transformed, with 24/7 monitoring of vital and other health indicators for healthy
and sick groups through numerous wearable devices.
Health monitoring will also include in-body devices that communicate with the smart coordinator, which in turn can
transport the data to the infrastructure and reach hospitals and healthcare providers.
TM
The integration of the SmartBAN network with such infrastructure, i.e. Wi-Fi and 6G, will be fully context-aware,
and such integration will become increasingly sophisticated at predicting people's needs.
Context awareness combined with new human-machine interfaces such as the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) will
make interaction with the physical and digital world much more intuitive and efficient. Dynamic digital twins in the
digital world with increasing accuracy require synchronous updates of the physical world, and these will be an essential
platform for augmenting human abilities.
The computing needed for these devices will not all live in the devices themselves because of their small form factor
and battery power limitations. Rather, they may have to rely on locally available computing resources to complete tasks,
beyond the edge. Hence, the smart coordinator will play a significant role in this endeavour.
There are problems to solve. Among others, the interface between the current specification of SmartBAN (ETSI
TS 103 325 [i.1] and ETSI TS 103 326 [i.2]) and infrastructure at the link layer to minimize latency and guarantee a
QoS across networks; concerns about privacy protection, data cyber-security protection, and coexistence with other
wireless systems operating in the same frequency band.
The proposed smart coordinator aims to solve those issues and create one entire solution for health monitoring,
prevention, and treatment.
4.2 Data traffic between the smart coordinator and the
infrastructure
SmartBAN supplies the capability for remote monitoring and care. As told before, it drops the need to visit hospitals
often and allows for efficient management of health monitoring for patients and physicians.
The use case suggests automated monitoring of human data. Consequently, such sensitive information should be
managed securely with different authorization levels.
Regular monitoring of human data may trigger an alarm to the patient or user via an app, depending on the received
information. In other cases, it may trigger authorization to access parts of the patient, like the upper body, digestive
system, etc., or user information by other medical care providers.
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4.3 Service flows
Most SmartBAN data needs to be transferred to support real-time traffic with a certain level of QoS. In case of
emergencies, link availability and reliability are needed.
In this use case, the patient or user has wearables assumed to be connected wirelessly to infrastructure (cellular network,
TM
Wi-Fi ) via the smart coordinator. Diverse types of information are transferred to a medical centre (data measuring
and policy authorization) via a service provider or network operator. The medical centre will decide the emergency
contingency based on a policy to take later actions.
However, the connection may be to an app running at the edge as well. For example, based on health data monitoring,
eating, sleeping habits, when it is the most proper time to exercise, and advice on how many calories in a meal to intake,
among others.
User
Configuration
Network
Configuration
TSN TSN TSN
Talker Listener
Equipment Equipment Equipment
Wireless
Infrastructure:
Ethernet, WiFi, 5G
Figure 1: Service flows in SmartBAN emergency time-sensitive domain use case
In-body medical devices are implanted inside the body (if they are fixed), while some others are digestible (capsule
endoscope). Such in-body devices have a small form factor, implying low power consumption and limited transmission
power. Also, the information should be protected as it conveys [vital] human-body information.
SmartBAN implements power-efficient mobile access technology with battery and power-efficient connectivity. The
smart coordinator will send such medical information to infrastructure while controlling reliability, QoS, cyber-security
and privacy.
4.4 Smart coordinator high-level description
4.4.0 General information smart coordinator high-level description
SmartBAN complemented with the smart coordinator, enables the vertical for healthcare and well-being through mobile
health monitoring and personalized delivery applications.
Such personal data, which may be medical data, is sensitive and private and requires a high degree of reliability and
privacy in transporting and storing such data.
The smart coordinator will play a significant part in advancing this area of development.
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11 ETSI TR 103 944 V1.1.1 (2023-11)
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