Wireless Body Area Networks Routing Research Articles

Design of an optimized energy-efficient routing protocol for reliable wireless body area networks

Energy limitation is one of the essential parameters in the design of a Wireless body area networks (WBANs) as it is important to improve the lifetime of the network. WBAN routing is an effective approach for establishing energy efficiency sets and assign time slots for the network. Many algorithms that deal with interference model treats the whole WBAN as a minimum interference unit and increase their lifetime cycle. In this research, we report an effective low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) routing protocol using MATLAB simulation and related C++ simulation codes to enhance the overall performance of the network by improving the energy efficiency and network lifetime cycles. Furthermore, the study sheds light up on the comparison of the protocol and proposes a modified protocol for WBAN. Based on the results obtained from conducting different configurations in the proposed design, the base station should be situated near the network to insure high network performance.

HT-WSO: A hybrid meta-heuristic approach-aided multi-objective constraints for energy efficient routing in WBANs

Generally, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are regarded as the collection of small sensor devices that are effectively implanted or embedded into the human body. Moreover, the nodes included in the WBAN have large resource constraints. Hence, reliable and energy-efficient data transmission plays a significant role in the implementation and in constructing of most of the merging applications. Regarded to complicated channel environment, limited power supply, as well as varying link connectivity has made the construction of WBANs routing protocol become difficult. In order to provide the routing protocol in a high energy-efficient manner, a new approach is suggested using hybrid meta-heuristic development. Initially, all the sensor nodes in WBAN are considered for experimentation. In general, the WBAN is comprised of mobile nodes as well as fixed sensor nodes. Since the existing models are ineffective to achieve high energy efficiency, the new routing protocol is developed by proposing the Hybrid Tunicate-Whale Swarm Optimization (HT-WSO) algorithm. Subsequently, the proposed work considers the multiple constraints for deriving the objective function. The network efficiency is analyzed using the objective function that is formulated by distance, hop count, energy, path loss, and load and packet loss ratio. To attain the optimum value, the HT-WSO derived from Tunicate Swarm Algorithm (TSA) and Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) is employed. In the end, the ability of the working model is estimated by diverse parameters and compared with existing traditional approaches. The simulation outcome of the designed method achieves 13.3%, 23.5%, 25.7%, and 27.7% improved performance than DHOA, Jaya, TSA, and WOA. Thus, the results illustrate that the recommended protocol attains better energy efficiency over WBANs.

TSFIS-GWO: Metaheuristic-driven takagi-sugeno fuzzy system for adaptive real-time routing in WBANs

Wireless body area network (WBAN) is an internet-of-things technology that facilitates remote patient monitoring and enables medical staff to administer timely treatments. One of the main challenges in designing WBANs is the routing problem, which is complicated due to dynamic changes in network topology and the limited resources of nodes. Several heuristic and metaheuristic methods have been presented to solve the routing problem in WBANs. Although metaheuristics outperform heuristics by producing higher-quality solutions, they cannot respond to real-time requests. This paper introduces a reactive routing protocol for WBANs that combines a fuzzy heuristic with a metaheuristic learning model. It utilizes a Takagi-Sugeno Fuzzy Inference System in conjunction with the Grey Wolf Optimizer (named TSFIS-GWO). The objective is to simultaneously benefit from the advantages of both approaches, namely, the effectiveness of metaheuristics for offline hyperparameter tuning and the quickness of fuzzy heuristics for real-time routing. At every round, the tuned fuzzy system takes multiple parameters of the current state of the nodes and links to construct the multi-hop routing tree under IEEE 802.15.6. To optimize the performance of the protocol for each WBAN, the fuzzy rules of the TSFIS model are automatically adjusted through a learning method based on GWO. This is done in accordance with the specific requirements of the application, and the tuning process takes place once before the protocol is applied. Simulation results in three applications demonstrate that the proposed TSFIS-GWO model is capable of providing real-time solutions while outperforming the existing methods in terms of application-specific performance measures.

Dissecting wireless body area networks routing protocols: Classification, comparative analysis, and research challenges

SummaryIn the present scenario, wireless body area network (WBAN) use case has gone beyond medical monitoring (e.g., E‐Healthcare) and has become a vital part of our daily lives. WBANs, applied in E‐Healthcare systems, extract the physiological parameters through the implanted (in‐body) and/or wearable (on‐body) sensors applied to the human body and route them to the remote server in a systematized and well‐grounded manner. Thus, routing is the most primitive and non‐trivial task in WBANs for prompt and proper delivery of sensed data. The design of routing protocol is crucial for efficacious communication and high network performance. Therefore, the target of this paper is to present an all‐encompassing taxonomy of the state‐of‐the‐art routing protocols in WBANs. Firstly, this paper provides an insight into WBANs and their related projects. Next, WBAN routing challenges are explored, and after clustering these challenges based on their operating mechanism, the routing protocols are categorized into eight categories, which correspond to cluster‐ and tree‐based, cross‐layer‐based, fuzzy‐based, interference‐based, posture‐based, QoS‐based, SDN‐based, and temperature‐based routing protocols. Furthermore, comparison tables highlighting the goals, strengths, limitations, and novelty of each protocol, along with a qualitative comparison table of the routing protocols for each category based on their features are furnished. This exhaustive survey can serve as a starting point for WBAN researchers, as open research issues have been highlighted in the discussion section.

An Insight on Optimization Techniques for Uncertain and Reliable Routing in Wireless Body Area Networks

In recent times, Wireless Body Area Networks a subsection of Wireless Sensor Network is a promising technology for future healthcare realm with cutting-edge technologies that can assist healthcare professionals like doctors, nurses and biomedical engineers. Machine Learning and Internet of Things enabled medical big data is the future of healthcare sector and Medical Technology-based industries leading to applications in other sectors such as fitness tracking for commercial purposes, Sportsperson health monitoring to track their day-to-day activities and wearable devices for critical and emergency care. This comprehensive review article addresses Wireless Body Area Network state-of-art and the dependence of Optimization Techniques and Meta-heuristic Algorithms for an efficient routing path between two sensor nodes: source node and destination node and it plays an effective role in optimizing the network parameters such as radio range, energy consumption, throughput, data aggregation, clustering and routing. Designing of energy-efficient routing for wireless body are network is such a challenging task due to uncertainty in dynamic network topology, energy constraints and limited power consumption. Optimization Techniques can help the researchers to achieve the drawbacks mentioned above and energy-efficiency of the network can be improved. In this article, we focus majorly on the efficiency of usage of optimization algorithms for Wireless Body Area Network routing mechanisms and a summary of its earlier studies during 2012-2023 epoch. Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, Ant Colony Optimization, Artificial Bee Colony and Firefly Optimization algorithms were discussed on achieving local optima for better results through optimization. This article provides an insight into existing gaps and further modifications to the researchers in WBAN that can motivate them to propose new ideas for reliable solutions. Performance comparison and evaluation of different bio-inspired optimization algorithms has been discussed for further improvement in optimized routing algorithms.

Optimal reliable design of energy-efficient Wireless Body Area Networks

A Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a network of wireless devices that are used to monitor the health of individuals or provide them with information pertinent to their personal health. A WBAN typically consists of multiple sensors and a central sink and it enables the tracking of multiple body signals without the need for cables or other wired connections, allowing for a more comfortable user experience. The used sensors are extremely small and lightweight, making them well-suited for long-term medical monitoring. In this paper, we consider the joint problem of device positioning and data routing in WBANs leveraging relay-based multi-hop communication to address network energy consumption and reliable data transmission, which are two fundamental challenges in the WBAN design. The deployment of a WBAN is the most important factor that impacts both the network lifetime and reliability. On the other side, routing in multi-hop WBANs is of paramount importance for efficient communications between sensors and the centralized hub. For this reason, we define and assign to each relay a concave and non-increasing function (called reliability function) which permits to decrease consistently congestion occurrence in the network by balancing relays loads. In this work, we consider the problem of designing an energy-aware routing on WBANs while ensuring that all data are delivered to the sink with a sufficiently large probability. This problem is formulated as a non-convex mixed-integer non-linear programming problem and proven to be NP-hard. We first present an efficient linearization technique for the problem and then propose lower- and upper-bounding schemes for the problem, which can be applied within a cutting plane algorithm-based heuristic to solve the problem. Finally, we evaluate the proposed model with a real topology scenario and compare its performance with the most notable methods presented in the literature. Numerical results show that our model, independently of patient body movement, can transfer data through reliable paths from biosensors to the sink while further offering these options: (1) the probability that each biosensor successfully transfers its data to the sink is adjustable according to the desired application; (2) congestion is limited through a careful balancing of incoming traffic to relays, and (3) a small number of relays is installed, while ensuring an energy-efficient routing of data.

Efficient and Reliable Multihop Routing for IoT Healthcare Applications

A wireless body area network (WBAN) collects several tiny sensor nodes in the human body. They are intended to observe data constantly forward and perform as critical structures for remote healthcare monitoring and healing. These protect the preferred reliability and efficiency of data transmissions of individual body sensors. However, with the restricted sensor energy, unreliable link connection, and complex channel environment, the design of efficient routing in Multihop WBANs is demanding. This article, Efficient and Reliable Multihop Routing (ERMR) for IoT Healthcare Applications, is proposed. The main concept is to incorporate a fuzzy-logic system to handle multiple cross-layer input variables independently. This approach uses the fuzzy logic method to select the optimal route in the WBAN. The fuzzy input like sensor node distance, link strength, energy, and node quality of Service and produce the output is a reliable forwarder selection. Simulation results demonstrate the proposed approach increases the network throughput and minimizes the network delay in the WBAN.

Routing Protocols in Wireless Body Area Networks: Architecture, Challenges, and Classification

The wireless body area network (WBAN) is a branch of the wireless sensor network (WSN) intended for tracking essential patients’ physiological signals and transferring this knowledge to the coordinator. During the routing of data, WBANs encounter critical routing problems like WSNs. Moreover, the particular constraints of WBANs make it more challenging that they need to be addressed. This survey article categorizes and briefly analyzes a range of current routing methods utilized in WBANs. The routing protocol is essential to the creation of any efficient and reliable wireless body area network due to a limited size of battery in the body sensor nodes. A comparison study of numerous routing protocols has been made in this paper, which is helpful in selecting the optimal routing protocol for the application being targeted. The article describes the WBAN architecture and addresses numerous challenges in the context of successful WBAN routing. In this paper, several existing WBAN routing methods are presented which are influenced by network structure, energy, quality of service (QoS), node temperature, human position, node transmission range, and other factors. The protocols, including cross-layered, cluster-based, QoS-aware, postural movement-based, temperature-aware, postural movement-based, and routing protocols, are given in an expressive taxonomy. Different routing protocols that have already been developed for WBANs are compared with more advanced protocols. The pros and cons of each protocol are looked at based on factors like delay, packet delivery ratio, and energy use. The researchers can utilize this survey paper as a reference for studying various routing protocols particularly in the medical and healthcare systems.

Minimization of End-to-End Delay for an Improved Dual-Sink Cluster-Based Routing in WBAN

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are an integral part of a Wireless sensor network, where sensor nodes are strategically placed in the human body to sense physiological signals and transmit them to the medical personnel via server for medical observations. Every sensor node in WBANs has a general limitation in energy efficiency, end-to-end delay, residual energy, etc. Also, the high energy consumption in WBANs is mainly due to the number of hops covered during physiological signal transmission. This work developed a hop-distance scenario to address these challenges and improve on what others have done. It buffered traffic estimation schemes to minimize end-to-end delay and the total network energy efficiency. This work minimizes end-to-end delay dual-sink cluster-based routing in WBANs by improving the existing dual-sink-sink cluster-based scheme (iDSCB). The simulation result shows that the Minimization of end-to-end delay of the improved dual-sink cluster-based (iDSCB) enhanced the performance of the current article DSCB in terms of end-to-end delay and residual energy by 3.15% and 8.88%, respectively.

Thermal Aware Routing Protocols for Wireless Body Area Networks: Review and Open Research Issues

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a promising technology that improves life quality and enhances medical healthcare services. The activities and communications of sensors lead to a temperature rise, which can be fatal for the human body. The heating problem is addressed by the thermal-aware strategy, which has great importance. This paper reviews sixteen thermal-aware routing protocols proposed for WBAN; it presents routing in WBAN and its associated challenges. It explains the principles and pros and cons of each protocol and compares the protocols studied using several criteria. Finally, the paper points out the open research issues and challenges. This review intends to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date reference for everyone interested in the thermal-aware communication protocols for WBANs.

IoT based thermal aware routing protocols in wireless body area networks: Survey: IoT based thermal aware routing in WBAN

The growth of the world's population, especially that of the elderly, along with the outbreak of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 have caused hospitals and healthcare centres to become full, and even economical treatments cost a lot. On that account, the conjunction of wireless body area networks (WBAN) and Internet of Things (IoT) for healthcare and medical diagnosis has become really important, and is accordingly one of the most popular and attractive areas of the Internet of Things (IoT). In such an IoT, a wireless body area network (WBAN) consists of a miniature sample of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) that can be either implanted in the human body or wearable. Nowadays, IoT has made healthcare evaluation possible. Instead of the patient being constantly hospitalized for treatment, the condition of the person is sent to the health centre by the IoMT over the Internet. IoT enables wireless communication between smart devices on one side and almost anything on the other. Since this network deals with medical and critical conditions, data must be sent to a physician or practitioner in the prescribed period; this indicates that routing is one of the most critical issues. Thus, routing is considered a very important challenge in WBANs. The present study describes thermal (temperature)-aware routing protocols in WBANs. Routing protocols in WBANs are divided into thermal (temperature)-aware, QoS-aware, security-aware, cluster-based, cross-layered, postured-based, cost-effect, link-aware, and opportunistic ones. In a WBAN, temperature rise in implant nodes can damage body tissues, which is dangerous for the patient. Accordingly, here, those algorithms were considered which are presented in thermal (temperature)-aware protocols. This paper first introduces IoT-based WBANs, their routing mechanism and challenges, after which it provides a detailed description of thermal (temperature)-aware algorithms. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of these algorithms are presented.

Mitigation of packet loss with end-to-end delay in wireless body area network applications

The wireless body area network (WBAN) has been proposed to offer a solution to the problem of population ageing, shortage in medical facilities and different chronic diseases. The development of this technology has been further fueled by the demand for real-time application for monitoring these cases in networks. The integrity of communication is constrained by the loss of packets during communication affecting the reliability of WBAN. Mitigating the loss of packets and ensuring the performance of the network is a challenging task that has sparked numerous studies over the years. The WBAN technology as a problem of reducing network lifetime; thus, in this paper, we utilize cooperative routing protocol (CRP) to improve package delivery via end-to-end latency and increase the length of the network lifetime. The end-to-end latency was used as a metric to determine the significance of CRP in WBAN routing protocols. The CRP increased the rate of transmission of packets to the sink and mitigate packet loss. The proposed solution has shown that the end-to-end delay in the WBAN is considerably reduced by applying the cooperative routing protocol. The CRP technique attained a delivery ratio of 0.8176 compared to 0.8118 when transmitting packets in WBAN.

Design and implementation of energy-aware cross-layer routing protocol for wearable body area network

PurposeA wireless body area network (WBAN) plays a crucial role in the health-care domain. With the emergence of technologies like the internet of things, there is increased usage of WBAN for providing quality health services. With wearable devices and sensors associated with human body, patient’s vital signs are captured and sent to doctor. The WBAN has number of sensor nodes that are resource constrained. The communications among the nodes are very crucial as human health information is exchanged. The purpose of this paper aims to have Quality of Service (QoS) with energy aware and control overhead aware. Maximizing network lifetime is also essential for the improved quality in services. There are many existing studies on QoS communications in WBAN.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, with the aim of energy-efficient WBAN for QoS, a cross-layer routing protocol is designed and implemented. A cross-layer routing protocol that is ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV)-based, energy and control overhead-aware (AODV-ECOA) is designed and implemented for energy-efficient routing in WBAN. The cross-layer design that involves multiple layers of open systems interconnection reference model, which will improve energy efficiency and thus QoS.FindingsImplementation is simulated using the network simulator tool, i.e. NS-2. The proposed cross-layer routing protocol AODV-ECOA shows least bandwidth requirement by control packets, leading to less control overhead, highest packet delivery ratio and energy efficiency. The experimental results revealed that AODV-ECOA shows better performance over existing protocols such as AODV and POLITIC.Originality/valueAn efficient control overhead reduction algorithm is proposed for reducing energy consumption further and improves performance of WBAN communications to realize desired QoS.

PEDTARA: Priority-Based Energy Efficient, Delay and Temperature Aware Routing Algorithm Using Multi-Objective Genetic Chaotic Spider Monkey Optimization for Critical Data Transmission in WBANs

Software-Defined Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN)s have gained significance in emergency healthcare applications for remote patients. Prioritization of healthcare data traffic has a high influence on the congestion and delay in the WBAN routing process. Currently, the energy constraints, packet loss, retransmission delay and increased sensor heat are pivotal research challenges in WBAN. These challenges also degrade the network lifetime and create serious issues for critical health data transmission. In this context, a Priority-based Energy-efficient, Delay and Temperature Aware Routing Algorithm (PEDTARA) is presented in this paper using a hybrid optimization algorithm of Multi-objective Genetic Chaotic Spider Monkey Optimization (MGCSMO). This proposed optimized routing algorithm is designed by incorporating the benefits of chaotic and genetic operators to the position updating function of enhanced Spider Monkey Optimization. For the prioritized routing process, initially, the patient data transmission in the WBAN is categorized into normal, on-demand and emergency data transmissions. Each category is ensured with efficient routing using the three different strategies of the suggested PEDTARA. PEDTARA performs optimal shortest path routing for normal data, energy-efficient emergency routing for high priority critical data and faster but priority verified routing for on-demand data. Thus, the proposed PEDTARA ensures energy-efficient, congestion-controlled and delay and temperature aware routing at any given period of health monitoring. Experiments were performed over a high-performance simulation scenario and the evaluation results showed that the proposed PEDTARA performs efficient routing better than the traditional approaches in terms of energy, temperature, delay, congestion and network lifetime.

Towards a Secure Thermal-Energy Aware Routing Protocol in Wireless Body Area Network Based on Blockchain Technology.

The emergence of biomedical sensor devices, wireless communication, and innovation in other technologies for healthcare applications result in the evolution of a new area of research that is termed as Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). WBAN originates from Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which are used for implementing many healthcare systems integrated with networks and wireless devices to ensure remote healthcare monitoring. WBAN is a network of wearable devices implanted in or on the human body. The main aim of WBAN is to collect the human vital signs/physiological data (like ECG, body temperature, EMG, glucose level, etc.) round-the-clock from patients that demand secure, optimal and efficient routing techniques. The efficient, secure, and reliable designing of routing protocol is a difficult task in WBAN due to its diverse characteristic and restraints, such as energy consumption and temperature-rise of implanted sensors. The two significant constraints, overheating of nodes and energy efficiency must be taken into account while designing a reliable blockchain-enabled WBAN routing protocol. The purpose of this study is to achieve stability and efficiency in the routing of WBAN through managing temperature and energy limitations. Moreover, the blockchain provides security, transparency, and lightweight solution for the interoperability of physiological data with other medical personnel in the healthcare ecosystem. In this research work, the blockchain-based Adaptive Thermal-/Energy-Aware Routing (ATEAR) protocol for WBAN is proposed. Temperature rise, energy consumption, and throughput are the evaluation metrics considered to analyze the performance of ATEAR for data transmission. In contrast, transaction throughput, latency, and resource utilization are used to investigate the outcome of the blockchain system. Hyperledger Caliper, a benchmarking tool, is used to evaluate the performance of the blockchain system in terms of CPU utilization, memory, and memory utilization. The results show that by preserving residual energy and avoiding overheated nodes as forwarders, high throughput is achieved with the ultimate increase of the network lifetime. Castalia, a simulation tool, is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol, and its comparison is made with Multipath Ring Routing Protocol (MRRP), thermal-aware routing algorithm (TARA), and Shortest-Hop (SHR). Evaluation results illustrate that the proposed protocol performs significantly better in balancing of temperature (to avoid damaging heat effect on the body tissues) and energy consumption (to prevent the replacement of battery and to increase the embedded sensor node life) with efficient data transmission achieving a high throughput value.

Energy Optimized Congestion Control-Based Temperature Aware Routing Algorithm for Software Defined Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a promising cost-effective technology for the privacy confined military applications and healthcare applications like remote health monitoring, telemedicine, and e-health services. The use of a Software-Defined Network (SDN) approach improves the control and management processes of the complex structured WBANs and also provides higher flexibility and dynamic network structure. To seamless routing performance in SDN-based WBAN, the energy-efficiency problems must be tackled effectively. The main contribution of this paper is to develop a novel Energy Optimized Congestion Control based on Temperature Aware Routing Algorithm (EOCC-TARA) using Enhanced Multi-objective Spider Monkey Optimization (EMSMO) for SDN-based WBAN. This algorithm overcomes the vital challenges, namely energy-efficiency, congestion-free communication, and reducing adverse thermal effects in WBAN routing. First, the proposed EOCC-TARA routing algorithm considers the effects of temperature due to the thermal dissipation of sensor nodes and formulates a strategy to adaptively select the forwarding nodes based on temperature and energy. Then the congestion avoidance concept is added with the energy-efficiency, link reliability, and path loss for modeling the cost function based on which the EMSMO provides the optimal routing. Simulations were performed, and the evaluation results showed that the proposed EOCC-TARA routing algorithm has superior performance than the traditional routing approaches in terms of energy consumption, network lifetime, throughput, temperature control, congestion overhead, delay, and successful transmission rate.

Motion-Based Routing and Transmission Power Control in Wireless Body Area Networks

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.

A Hybrid Fuzzy-Genetic Algorithm for Performance Optimization of Cyber Physical Wireless Body Area Networks

The use of fuzzy decision-making in datapath selection extends the sensor network lifetime with a uniform distribution of routing load among network nodes. Fuzzy-logic based routing protocols are mostly designed for general wireless sensor networks (WSN). However, such protocols are not compatible with a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) comprised of biosensor nodes. WBAN nodes carry inferior computational, communication and energy resources as compared to general WSN nodes. A WBAN routing protocol needs to be designed as per IEEE 802.15.6 WBAN standards to meet high-end QoS requirements of medical applications. This paper presents a fuzzy-logic-based clustering protocol for data routing in WBANs. Nodes are grouped into clusters and cluster head nodes are selected through a Fuzzy-Genetic Algorithm termed as EB-fg-MADM. EB-fg-MADM makes an assessment of dual attributes of each cluster node in terms of node residual energy and CH selection cost. CH selection cost of a node is the forecasted value of network energy consumption if the node acts as a cluster head. EB-fg-MADM utilizes a fuzzy-TOPSIS function which makes a quantitative comparison of cluster nodes and selects the cluster head node possessing the aforementioned attributes closest to their ideally desired values. A Genetic Algorithm-based optimization process adapts the attribute weights for cluster head selection. EB-fg-MADM provides enhanced network lifetime with a uniform distribution of routing load. Protocol performance is obtained in terms of network lifetime, throughput and latency. Results are compared with existing WBAN routing protocols and are found to be better.

SDN‐based wireless body area network routing algorithm for healthcare architecture

The use of wireless body area networks (WBANs) in healthcare applications has made it convenient to monitor both health personnel and patient status continuously in real time through wearable wireless sensor nodes. However, the heterogeneous and complex network structure of WBANs has some disadvantages in terms of control and management. The software‐defined network (SDN) approach is a promising technology that defines a new design and management approach for network communications. In order to create more flexible and dynamic network structures in WBANs, this study uses the SDN approach. For this, a WBAN architecture based on the SDN approach with a new energy‐aware routing algorithm for healthcare architecture is proposed. To develop a more flexible architecture, a controller that manages all HUBs is designed. The proposed architecture is modeled using the Riverbed Modeler software for performance analysis. The simulation results show that the SDN‐based structure meets the service quality requirements and shows superior performance in terms of energy consumption, throughput, successful transmission rate, and delay parameters according to the traditional routing approach.

Thermal and energy aware routing in wireless body area networks

Unlike many other Internet of Things applications, in addition to the limited power of Internet of Medical Things devices, the safety aspect and reliability are the major concerns while designing wireless body area network routing solutions. In fact, the heat dissipation from Internet of Medical Things devices and changes in body posture cause tissue damage and frequent wireless links breakage, respectively. Hence, designing an efficient routing solution is extremely challenging in wireless body area network. Considering the safety aspects of human body, the power constraint of Internet of Medical Things devices, and topological variations in wireless body area network environment, this article presents a thermal-aware, energy-efficient, and reliable routing protocol named thermal and energy aware routing. In the given perspective, thermal and energy aware routing considers the weighted average of three costs while selecting the routing path: energy consumption, heat dissipation, and link quality (between communicating nodes). The proposed protocol is validated by a comparison with a state-of-the-art wireless body area network routing protocol. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed protocol is efficient in terms of energy consumption, thermal impact, and packet reception rate.