BATMAC: An adaptive TDMA MAC for body area networks performed with a space-time dependent channel model

Abstract

Wireless communications for body area network (BAN) applications require an adaptable, dynamic and flexible medium access control (MAC) to cope with a variety of application requirements. The key requirements in BAN applications are low power consumption, high reliability of intra-BAN communication and low latency. As body posture highly affects the performance of MAC protocols, we evaluate the relaying benefits to reinforce links. However, since radio links are not stationary, the scheduling of the relaying should quickly adapt to BAN changes. We instead propose a BAN Adaptive TDMA MAC (BATMAC) which automatically detects the shadowing effect and adjusts its communication protocols and the parameters of the IEEE 802.15.4 superframe. Finally, we evaluate BATMAC from latency outage and energy consumption points of view depending on the redundancy of the monitoring information.