Abstract
Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are characterized by large fluctuations in channel losses due to body shadowing. These fluctuations follow the patterns of the user's body movements. For example, in the case of walking and running, channel losses follow cyclical patterns. This paper presents an algorithm for transmission power control (TPC) and dynamic routing in WBANs when the user performs periodic body movements. The objective of the algorithm is to decrease the average power consumption to deliver packets to a common sink provided that a desired packet delivery rate (PDR) is guaranteed. This problem is important in WBANs given that replacing batteries is detrimental to several applications of WBANs, especially when sensors of the WBAN are implanted on the user's body. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed algorithm is the first to consider the joint problem of TPC and dynamic routing while not relying on non-local data (i.e., measurements of received power). This characteristic is important because traditional algorithms rely on data not local to transmitters, so these data have to be transmitted, consuming power unnecessarily. Traditional algorithms are also limited to the star topology only, so routing is not considered, which decreases network connectivity and transmission-power savings. The proposed algorithm is implemented on a WBAN of Shimmer wireless sensors. Experimental results show a reduction in power consumption of 23.4% to 50.4% when compared against transmissions at maximum power and a PDR within 5.6% of the desired value. The power consumption of the overhead of the proposed algorithm can be as small as 11% of that one of traditional algorithms. The algorithm's complexity is shown to be $O(N^{3})$ , where $N$ is the number of sensors. Finally, the algorithm is compared with traditional algorithms which reduce power consumption by 39.0% on average at most.
Highlights
W IRELESS body area networks (WBANs) are used in sports, physical therapy, and other daily activities that in many cases characterize by periodic body movements such as walking, running, or therapy exercises
This paper addresses the problem of dynamic routing and transmission power control (TPC) in WBANs when the user performs periodic motions
In [19], the connectivity of WBANs is evaluated for multi-hop and star topologies, and the results show that the frequency that the WBAN becomes disconnected is higher for star topologies
Summary
W IRELESS body area networks (WBANs) are used in sports, physical therapy, and other daily activities that in many cases characterize by periodic body movements such as walking, running, or therapy exercises. The main idea is that in WBANs where the user performs periodic motion, the attenuation that wireless links experience follows a cyclical pattern, so sensors can learn the cyclical pattern to estimate the level of attenuation before transmitting and adjust transmission power . Before transmitting, each sensor estimates the current body posture of the user’s motion to determine from the body-motion model the channel state that corresponds to the estimated posture This idea was developed in our preliminary work [8], [13] and in [11], [14], [15], [16] for star topologies only.
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