Improving the energy efficiency for biosensor nodes in the WBSN bottleneck zone based on a random linear network coding

Abstract

The most important challenges in the design of a Wireless Body Sensor Network (WBSN) are the reduction of energy usage and the successful delivery of data. In general for healthcare applications, the batteries of biosensor nodes cannot be easily recharged or replaced. Therefore energy consumption is a critical issue in WBSNs, specifically, the nodes that are placed next to the sink node consume more energy, which limits the network lifetime because all biomedical packets are aggregated through these nodes forming a bottleneck zone. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel mathematical model for body area network (BAN) topology to explain the deployment and connection between biosensor nodes, simple relay nodes, network coding relay nodes and the sink node. The model uses Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) to improve the energy efficiency for biosensor nodes in the WBSN bottleneck zone, combining saving energy with achieving the delivery of data if there is a failure in one of the links of the transmissions. A mathematical model for a WBSN was designed, and it was apparent that energy consumption is reduced and data delivery achieved with the proposed mechanism. This paper details the stages of the research work.