Energy-aware adaptive topology adjustment in wireless body area networks

Abstract

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) represent a key emerging technology to resolve the connection issues on, in or around the human body. One of the most important and challenging issues in WBANs is to maximize the network lifetime. Employing additional relaying node to save energy was considered in the literatures available. Different from the related work, we propose a novel adaptive MAC protocol for WBANs named Network Longevity Enhancement by Energy Aware medium access control Protocol (NLEEAP), which reduces energy consumption without introducing additional devices. The procedures in NLEEAP consist of relay request, relay response and superframe adjustment. The relay operation is initiated when the shortage of a node's residual energy occurs. Once the relay succeeds, NLEEAP smoothly switches the network topology from single-hop to multi-hop. Simulations are conducted and the results show the superiority of NLEEAP in energy efficiency compared with that of existing standard of IEEE 802.15.4.