Abstract

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) has been a potential avenue for future digitized healthcare systems. WBAN has unique challenges and features compared to other wireless sensor networks. In addition to battery power consumption, the vulnerability and the unpredicted channel behaviour make channel access a serious problem. Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols can help in achieving a reliable and energy efficient WBAN. IEEE 802.15.4 provides TDMA based mechanisms to save energy consumption. However, both contention-free and inactive periods are static and do not consider channel status or nodes reliability requirements. Hence, this paper presents two IEEE 802.15.4 TDMA based techniques to improve WBAN reliability and energy efficiency. The first technique allows nodes to avoid channel deep fade by distributing adaptively their sleep period during their active period according to their channel status. Thereafter, in the second technique, nodes are dynamically allocated time slots according to their requirements, which depend on their link's status. The proposed techniques are evaluated within various traffic rates and their performances are compared with the legacy IEEE 802.15.4 MAC. Results reveal that the proposed techniques are able to promote the WBAN reliability and energy efficiency.

Highlights

  • During the 20th century, a mighty shift towards replacing wired sensors with wireless ones forming a wireless network of sensors from which the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) era had emerged

  • According to the empirical study presented in [16] which’s results are based on a real Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) worn by a person doing different daily-activities, it is revealed that when a deep fade occurs in the WBAN channel, it lasts for at least 10 ms

  • If nodes are allowed to operate in a timely, scheduled manner, following contention free channel access, such as a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) approach, fading becomes the primary source of unreliable WBAN

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Summary

Introduction

During the 20th century, a mighty shift towards replacing wired sensors with wireless ones forming a wireless network of sensors from which the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) era had emerged. It's not so long when such a revolution has shifted its direction to a technology that suits human mobility by surrounding human body with wearable and implanted, low cost, energy constrained tiny and heterogeneous sensor nodes. These nodes form what we call nowadays Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). According to the empirical study presented in [16] which’s results are based on a real WBAN worn by a person doing different daily-activities, it is revealed that when a deep fade occurs in the WBAN channel, it lasts for at least 10 ms This slow changing channel characteristic can be exploited to predict the channel performance in upcoming time-periods. This will help in channel status prediction, but will save energy because contention free techniques avoid idle listening and overhearing

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