Energy Efficient Dynamic Cluster Head and Routing Path Selection Strategy for WBANs

Abstract

Wirelss Body Area Networks, a new promising technology, have the competence to reform healthcare and contribute ubiquitous health monitoring services to patients both at homes and hospitals. WBAN comprises of low power sensor nodes that communicate based on radio frequency communicational technologies. Sensor nodes are either wearable or implantable (beneath the skin). However, it is difficult to recharge or replace the devices that are used to sense the body parameters. Thus, energy consumption and prolonged lifetime of the networks is a major concern and more energy efficient routing protocols for WBANs are required. We have proposed a routing protocol based on GA for WBANs which is efficient in terms of energy efficiency and network lifetime. Cost function is defined on the basis of residual energy and distance parameter so that the near by nodes are selected in a cluster which makes ideal cluster distribution and reduces energy consumption. The proposed algorithm focuses on Inter-BAN communication. The simulation results of the proposed protocol are compared with previously known schemes in terms of different parameters, such as energy efficiency, network lifetime, throughput, packet delivery ratio and average delay and have shown the enhanced performance. Also, the proposed scheme has enhanced energy optimization by 28–29% with respect to the existing schemes.