Abstract
Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are a fast-growing field fueled by the number of wearable devices developed for countless applications appearing on the market. To enable communication between a variety of those devices, the IEEE 802.15.6 standard was established. However, this standard has some intrinsic limitations in addressing the heterogeneity of the network nodes in terms of activity, data rates (from less than bit/s to multiple Mbit/s), energy availability, form factor, and location on, around or inside the body. To address these concerns, an alternative model is proposed that could serve as an extension of the IEEE 802.15.6 Standard. At its core is an adaptive and low-overhead synchronization scheme based on heartbeat sensing. This forms the base for a TDMA-based (Time Division Multiple Access) Media Access Control (MAC) protocol dedicated to multi-tier networks. While this effort focuses specifically on Capacitive Body-Coupled Communication (C-BCC), other physical layers can be easily incorporated as well. Based on these premises, this paper compares various random-access slot allocation approaches to accommodate the multiple data rates matching the system requirements, while incorporating a duty-cycling strategy anchored by heartbeat detection. This work proposes a novel, flexible, and robust solution, making use of heartbeat synchronization and addressing the corresponding challenges. It efficiently interconnects multiple device types over a wide range of data rates and targets a mesh of stars topology. At the cost of an increased communication latency, the proposed protocol outperforms the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC standard in terms of energy efficiency by a factor of at least 12x in a realistic scenario.
Highlights
Demand for medical and wellness applications grew extensively within the last decade, increasing the interest in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs)
A leaf sends to the hub the preferred period of communication measured in superframes, its communication class which defines the ALGTS internal structure, data related to the communication class and a list of identifiers dealing with the types of data to be addressed to the leaf by other devices in the WBAN
2) Simulation Results Figure 15 shows the energy efficiency per useful bit delivered, for each leaf node in the network. Both the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and HB-Media Access Control (MAC) are simulated with a heart rate varying between 40 and 160 bpm
Summary
Demand for medical and wellness applications grew extensively within the last decade, increasing the interest in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). The most generic yet complex human-oriented concept, the Human Intranet [1], aims at interconnecting a wide variety of sensors and actuators. Such versatility relies on an extended ability to integrate various devices in terms of data rate, available power and communication latency among others. WBANs have been extensively studied at the Media Access Control (MAC) level [2], [3]. Communication standards such as IEEE 802.15.6 [4], and, to some extent, IEEE 802.15.4 [5], have seen some penetration in WBAN deployment
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