Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks Research Articles

Reinforcement Learning Based Power Control for In-Body Sensors in WBANs Against Jamming

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) have to address jamming attacks to support health-care applications. In this paper, we present a reinforcement learning-based power control scheme for the communication between the in-body sensors and the WBAN coordinator to resist jamming attacks. This scheme applies Q-learning to guide the coordinator to achieve an optimal power control strategy without being aware of the in-body sensor’s transmission parameters and the WBAN model of the other sensors in the dynamic anti-jamming transmission. In addition, a transfer learning method is adopted to accelerate the learning speed. Stackelberg equilibria and their existence conditions are deduced in a single time slot to upper bound the performance of the learning-based sensor power control scheme. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can efficiently increase the utilities and decrease the transmission energy consumptions for the in-body sensors and the WBAN coordinator, and simultaneously reduce the attack possibility of the jammer compared with a standard Q-learning-based sensor power control scheme.

Wireless Body Area Network Security and Privacy Issue in E-Healthcare

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a collection of wireless sensor nodes which can be placed within the body or outside the body of a human or a living person which in result observes or monitors the functionality and adjoining situations of the body. Utilizing a Wireless Body Area Network, the patient encounters a greater physical versatility and is never again constrained to remain in the hospital. As the Wireless Body Area Network sensor devices is being utilized for gathering the sensitive data and possibly will run into antagonistic situations, they require complicated and very secure security medium or structure to avoid the vitriolic communications within the system. These devices represent various security and privacy protection of touchy and private patient medical data. The medical records of patients are a significant and an unsolved situation due to which a changing or exploitation to the system is possible. In this research paper, we first present an overview of WBAN, how they utilized for healthcare monitoring, its architecture then highlight major security and privacy requirements and assaults at different network layer in a WBAN and we finally talk about various cryptographic algorithms and laws for providing solution of security and privacy in WBAN.

Bio-Inspired Distributed Transmission Power Control Considering QoS Fairness in Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks.

Recently, the development of wireless body area sensor network (WBASN) has accelerated due to the rapid development of wireless technology. In the WBASN environment, many WBASNs coexist where communication ranges overlap with each other, resulting in the possibility of interference. Although nodes in a WBASN typically operate at a low power level, to avoid adversely affecting the human body, high transmission rates may be required to support some applications. In addition to this, since many varieties of applications exist in the WBASN environment, each prospective user may have different quality of service (QoS) requirements. Hence, the following issues should be considered in the WBASN environment: (1) interference between adjacent WBASNs, which influences the performance of a specific system, and (2) the degree of satisfaction on the QoS of each user, i.e., the required QoS such as user throughput should be considered to ensure that all users in the network are provided with a fair QoS satisfaction. Thus, in this paper, we propose a transmission power adjustment algorithm that addresses interference problems and guarantees QoS fairness between users. First, we use a new utility function to measure the degree of the satisfaction on the QoS for each user. Then, the transmission power of each sensor node is calculated using the Cucker–Smale model, and the QoS satisfaction of each user is synchronized dispersively. The results of simulations show that the proposed algorithm performs better than existing algorithms, with respect to QoS fairness and energy efficiency.

Securing Patient Data in Wireless Body Area Sensor Network Using Biometrics Based Key Generation

Introduction: A Wireless Body Area Sensor Network (WBASN) implements wearable devices interconnected with each other and connected to a central monitor acting as a Base Station. Ensuring data security and secure communication is challenging due to resource constrained environment. Secure communication is ensured with cryptography which requires good key generation techniques. Keywords: Wireless body area sensor network (WBASN), secure communication, cryptography, biometrics, cryptographic key generation.

AT-MAC: Adaptive MAC-Frame Payload Tuning for Reliable Communication in Wireless Body Area Networks

In wireless sensor networks, adaptive tuning of Medium Access Control (MAC) parameters is necessary in order to assure the QoS requirements. In this paper, we propose an adaptive MAC-frame payload tuning mechanism for wireless body area networks (WBANs) to maximize the probability of successful packet delivery or reliability of the associated sensor nodes based on real-time situation. The enabling algorithm, Adaptively Tuned MAC (AT-MAC), has been proposed to tune the MAC-frame payload of a WBAN sensor node, which is compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol. AT-MAC prioritizes sensor nodes based on the seriousness of the health parameters that are being measured by the respective sensor nodes. Further, we consider a Markov chain-based analytical approach that acknowledges the slotted CSMA/CA backoff mechanism with retry limits, as described in the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol. We derive expressions for reliability, power consumption, and throughput, which are the key metrics to evaluate the network performance of the proposed protocol, and analyze the impact of MAC parameters on them. Finally, results indicate that the low rate and low power IEEE 802.15.4 can be used effectively in case of WBANs if the payload is tuned properly through the proposed algorithm. The proposed AT-MAC algorithm yields around 70 percent increase in reliability of a critical node in a WBAN.

TMP: Tele-Medicine Protocol for Slotted 802.15.4 With Duty-Cycle Optimization in Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks

Recently, adaptive duty cycle-based medium access control (MAC) protocols based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard have been proposed to address the quality of service (QoS) requirements, including a specified and combined set of time bounded data transmission services, data rate, reliability, and energy consumption for wireless body area sensor networks. However, the current protocols suffer limitations in the context of providing a combined set of QoS. Moreover, for efficient energy consumption, these protocols adjust duty cycle values on estimations, such as active periods, buffer occupancy, and collision rates. These estimations consume resources in terms of delay and energy, which makes them hardly acceptable for medical applications. In this context, we propose a tele-medicine protocol (TMP) under the IEEE 802.15.4 slotted CSMA/CA with beacon enabled mode on the basis of a novel idea which combines two optimizations methods, i.e., MAC layer parameter tuning optimization and duty cycle optimization. The TMP duty cycle is adjusted by three factors: offered network traffic load, delay-reliability factor, and superframe duration. The proposed protocol provides the required set of QoS (delay, reliability, and efficient energy consumption) at the same time for patient monitoring applications. Performance of the proposed protocol is computed on the basis of average end-to-end delay, reliability, packet delivery ratio, collision rate, and energy consumption by varying the number of nodes and offered network traffic. The TMP performed well in terms of delay, reliability, energy consumption, and collision rate in comparison of the other existing protocols under the constraints of patient monitoring applications.

Employing Wireless Networks in Enhancing Occupational Safety at the Developing Seaport – Two Proposals

Abstract The paper proposes two Wireless Body Area Network Sensors (WBANSs) scenarios at the logical and simulation levels for improving occupational safety and health conditions at the developing seaport environment. The Port of Bar (Montenegro) is taken as an exemplar. The logical model is based on the actual position of the Port of Bar at the seaport market, its needs and capacities for the information systems innovation through technology transfer and diffusion. The simulation model analyses the channel between the body central unit (BCU) of the worker’s on port wireless body sub-network and the port access point. The quality of the signal transmission at the physical layer has been tested through a source code generated in the Matlab. The code includes the BCU composite signal modulation, transmission, and demodulation, along with a noise and fading effects analysis. The results of the simulation experiments for the different transmission frequencies and distances between transmitter (worker’s BCU) and receiver (port’s access point) by using binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) and quadratic phase-shift keying (QPSK) modulation schemes are presented. Some directions for further investigations in this field are given, as well.

Minimizing Path Loss in Medical Wireless Sensors in Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks

Objectives: To save the energy consumption of the sensors in transmission so that they may operate for longer time span. Methods/Statistical Analysis: It is suggested to use eight sensors placed on the human body and then transposition has been applied to all of these sensors to reduce the distance of each sensor from the sink. Path loss was calculated after transposition in terms of distance and results were compared with the existing schemes. Euclidean distance technique was applied to calculate the distance values and then observed for their positions. Findings: In this investigation, the main parameter is the path loss which needs to be reduced so as to make the transmission better and to make network stable. The findings are unique in the sense that with the help of the proposed values of sensor positions a routing protocols be designed which will have a better network stability and network life time and this will be achieved as the sensors will deplete less energy during transmission. The main idea behind this research is to find the most suitable sensor locations on the body where they can consume less energy during data transmission to sink and have more life to operate. Application/Improvements: The proposed scheme is applicable to body area systems which have limited energy sources due to the size of the sensors. The proposed scheme is compared with two existing schemes and there were improvements in terms of path loss parameter.

IEEE 802.15.4 Frame Aggregation Enhancement to Provide High Performance in Life-Critical Patient Monitoring Systems.

In wireless body area sensor networks (WBASNs), Quality of Service (QoS) provision for patient monitoring systems in terms of time-critical deadlines, high throughput and energy efficiency is a challenging task. The periodic data from these systems generates a large number of small packets in a short time period which needs an efficient channel access mechanism. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard is recommended for low power devices and widely used for many wireless sensor networks applications. It provides a hybrid channel access mechanism at the Media Access Control (MAC) layer which plays a key role in overall successful transmission in WBASNs. There are many WBASN’s MAC protocols that use this hybrid channel access mechanism in variety of sensor applications. However, these protocols are less efficient for patient monitoring systems where life critical data requires limited delay, high throughput and energy efficient communication simultaneously. To address these issues, this paper proposes a frame aggregation scheme by using the aggregated-MAC protocol data unit (A-MPDU) which works with the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC layer. To implement the scheme accurately, we develop a traffic patterns analysis mechanism to understand the requirements of the sensor nodes in patient monitoring systems, then model the channel access to find the performance gap on the basis of obtained requirements, finally propose the design based on the needs of patient monitoring systems. The mechanism is initially verified using numerical modelling and then simulation is conducted using NS2.29, Castalia 3.2 and OMNeT++. The proposed scheme provides the optimal performance considering the required QoS.

Microcontroller Based Automatic Impedance Matching Circuit and its Operation in Wireless Body Area Sensor Network

Background: Wireless body area network (WBAN) including bio-sensor network is expected to be a new communication system in ubiquitous society including medicine or point of care from the view point of easy connection of equipment．In this case, reduction of risk of information leak to a third party through special propagation is necessary. Human body communication (HBC) through the human body is a good solution for this problem. On the other hand, radio frequency (RF) communication should be carried out with a small power from the viewpoint of minimal invasion. Thus, high efficiency signal injection into human body is necessary. This paper provides the RF signal injection method with automatic impedance matching circuit operated by the use of Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC©)) for this purpose. Keywords: Wireless BAN, human body communication, sensor network, point of care communications, PIC, impedance matching.

Design and Performance Analysis of DSS (Dual Sink Based Scheme) Protocol for WBASNs

After a large improvement in health care services, Wireless Body Area Sensor Network (WBASN) is used in different fields where health care monitoring can be done continuously and from a distance. Many selected protocols are given in literature work which can improve the performance of WBASN by focusing on delay, routing and energy efficiency. In our research, we will focus on improving throughput, network life time, and decrease end-to-delay. In given research, the two sink nodes utilized and AnyCasting concept will be used. Dual Sinks based Scheme (DSS) for WBASN will be compared with existing DARE, SIMPLE, LAEEBA and M-ATTEMPT protocols. DSS performance found more efficient than DARE, SIMPLE, LAEEBA and M-ATTEMPT respectively in throughput. From results, DSS network life time is greater than DARE, SIMPLE, LAEEBA and M-ATTEMPT with minimum delay. In DSS, energy parameter is in tradeoff with the improved parameters, because of a computation of RSSI which do more process and utilize more energy.

Study and analysis of human mental stress detection using galvanic skin response and heart rate sensors in wired and wireless environments

It is an infeasible task for psychoanalysts to monitor the chronic mental stress of patients. Due to topical and innovative developments in wireless sensor technology and physiological sensors, researchers have been attracted to pursue research in wireless body area sensor networks (WBASN) or wireless body area networks (WBSN). As a result, the wireless sensor technology has enabled medical science in enhancing real-time health monitoring and maintaining a better healthcare scenario. In our previous work, the mental stress sensor presented was able to detect the stress condition based on the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) only with an average accuracy of about 76%. In this article, a system has been presented for sensing human mental stress by acquisition, processing and analysing the GSR and heart rate or pulse rate signals from human body. This system is proficient in detection of the mental stress condition using the GSR and heart rate signals assimilated by wearable physiological sensors in wired or wireless environments. For evaluation of the system performance, well-known supervised binary classifiers have been selected for classifying the GSR and heart rate data from the physiological dataset available and the results are discussed. This multi-sensor stress detection system has average accuracy more than the previous stress detection system using GSR.

Multi Agent Linear Programming Routing for Wireless Body Area Network

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) has received extensive attention for continuous monitoring of patients. Routing plays a major role in WBAN to collect the sensed data and route through relay nodes to reach the destined nodes with minimize energy consumption and routing time. This paper proposes the use of a Wireless Body Sensor Network communication framework based on the Multi Agent Model (MAM) called, Linear Programming and Stackelberg Equilibrium (LP-SE) to ensure energy efficient routing for WBAN. The MAM in the LP-SE interacts to a group of agents (i.e. sensing agent and communication agent) and cooperates to achieve energy efficient routing protocol. The sensing agent in the LP-SE sense the data collects the data from WBAN sensor nodes and classifies it according to the emergency constrained model, reducing routing time and energy consumption. The communication agent in the LP-SE performs energy based routing protocol by applying the Linear Programming Single Hop Communication and Stackelberg Equilibrium Multi Hop Communication model. To handle multiple patients’ information, the LP-SE used Linear Programming and Stackelberg Equilibrium function for single hop and multi hop communication respectively to the generated data in WBAN. Based on the LP-SE, experiment has been conducted on factors such as response time, energy consumption based on WBAN sensor node. Successive simulations in large-scale WBAN show good performance of the proposal in terms of response time, energy consumption and packet delivery rate.

Development of key generation algorithm using ECG biometrics for node security in wireless body area sensor network

Summary This paper investigates security and inter-node transmission energy for biosensors in a wireless body area sensor network (WBASN) system. Existing security solutions in WBASN have been observed to employ the pre-deployment of static authentication keys, which are unsecured and energy intensive. Electrocardiogram (ECG) biometric-based security scheme was developed using the peak location index (PLI) and inter-pulse-interval (IPI) of the heart beat. The fast Fourier transform method was used to process individually selected ECG datasets of diabetic patients and the differential equation method was used to extract the ECG biometric features (PLI and IPI). Energy model of Chipcon CC2420 specification was used to evaluate inter-node energy consumption performance. The research results showed that different PLI and IPI features were extracted from the ECG datasets and unpredictable authentication keys were generated. Node energy consumption performance evaluation showed a 25% reduction in energy consumption for successful inter-node transmission. The ECG feature keys generated were different and unpredictable at every instant, providing for inter-node communication security. Non-additional node energy for processing the authentication acknowledgment packets provided for inter-node energy consumption reduction. The developed algorithm has provided for secured inter-node communication with a 25% energy efficiency in node transmission energy consumption for a WBASN system.

A Secure Smartcard-Based Anonymous User Authentication Scheme for Healthcare Applications Using Wireless Medical Sensor Networks

A wireless medical sensor network (WMSN ) is a professional application of the traditional wireless body area sensor networks in medicine. Using WMSNs, the parameters of patients' vital signs can be gathered from the sensor nodes deployed on the body of the patients and accessed by the healthcare professionals by using a mobile device. Due to wireless communication, securing communication becomes a vital issue in WMSNs. Since the vital signs parameters are sensitive to the patients' health status and these information must not be revealed to the others except the healthcare professionals, the protection of patients' privacy becomes another key issue for WMSNs applications. Thus, user authentication with anonymity property is the most basic and commonly used method in order to resolve the security and privacy issues of WMSNs. He et al. presented a user authentication protocol for healthcare applications using WMSNs to protect the security and privacy problems. However, Li et al. showed that their scheme is incorrect in authentication and session key agreement phase, has no wrong password detection mechanism and is vulnerable to denial of service caused by password change with wrong password. In this paper, we review Li et al.'s scheme and show that their scheme is still vulnerable to privileged-insider attack, sensor node capture attack and fails to provide user anonymity property. Moreover, we find that He et al.'s scheme is still vulnerable to the same attacks as we find out in Li et al.'s scheme. In order to remedy the security weaknesses found in both He et al.'s scheme and Li et al.'s scheme, we present a secure biometrics-based user authentication scheme in WMSNs using smart card. Through the rigorous formal and informal security analysis, we show that our scheme is secure against possible known attacks. In addition, we simulate our scheme using the most-widely accepted and used Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool and the simulation results reveal that our scheme is secure. Our scheme is also efficient in computation and communication as compared to He et al.'s scheme, Li et al.'s scheme and other related schemes.

Privacy-Enhanced and Multifunctional Health Data Aggregation under Differential Privacy Guarantees.

With the rapid growth of the health data scale, the limited storage and computation resources of wireless body area sensor networks (WBANs) is becoming a barrier to their development. Therefore, outsourcing the encrypted health data to the cloud has been an appealing strategy. However, date aggregation will become difficult. Some recently-proposed schemes try to address this problem. However, there are still some functions and privacy issues that are not discussed. In this paper, we propose a privacy-enhanced and multifunctional health data aggregation scheme (PMHA-DP) under differential privacy. Specifically, we achieve a new aggregation function, weighted average (WAAS), and design a privacy-enhanced aggregation scheme (PAAS) to protect the aggregated data from cloud servers. Besides, a histogram aggregation scheme with high accuracy is proposed. PMHA-DP supports fault tolerance while preserving data privacy. The performance evaluation shows that the proposal leads to less communication overhead than the existing one.

Impact of Power Consumption in Sensors Life Time for Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area network (WBAN) is a communication standard optimized for low power devices and operation on, in or around the human body but not limited to humans used to serve a variety of applications including medical, consumer electronics, entertainment and other[1]. The challenge of WBAN is that the energy of the sensors is limited by the battery life that’s why the transmitting of data is not continuous for long time. This leads to poor efficiency of the WBAN because the continuous power decreasing is due to network operations. An algorithms such as MAC zigbee802.15.4 and adaptive reliable MAC are important to reduce the replacement of batteries many times and to save power consumption. In this paper we concentrated our study on some type of sensors, they are telosB, mica2, micaz, and imote2 depends on power consumption calculations using mat lab program and based on adaptive reliable MAC. We analyzed the sensors with several nodes and packet sizes, and calculate the lifetimes for all the sensors in WBAN. The results we obtained show a good performance of using Adaptive reliable MAC in Wireless Body Area Networks.

A comprehensive survey of energy-aware routing protocols in wireless body area sensor networks.

Wireless body area sensor network is a special purpose wireless sensor network that, employing wireless sensor nodes in, on, or around the human body, makes it possible to measure biological parameters of a person for specific applications. One of the most fundamental concerns in wireless body sensor networks is accurate routing in order to send data promptly and properly, and therefore overcome some of the challenges. Routing protocols for such networks are affected by a large number of factors including energy, topology, temperature, posture, the radio range of sensors, and appropriate quality of service in sensor nodes. Since energy is highly important in wireless body area sensor networks, and increasing the network lifetime results in benefiting greatly from sensor capabilities, improving routing performance with reduced energy consumption presents a major challenge. This paper aims to study wireless body area sensor networks and the related routing methods. It also presents a thorough, comprehensive review of routing methods in wireless body area sensor networks from the perspective of energy. Furthermore, different routing methods affecting the parameter of energy will be classified and compared according to their advantages and disadvantages. In this paper, fundamental concepts of wireless body area sensor networks are provided, and then the advantages and disadvantages of these networks are investigated. Since one of the most fundamental issues in wireless body sensor networks is to perform routing so as to transmit data precisely and promptly, we discuss the same issue. As a result, we propose a classification of the available relevant literature with respect to the key challenge of energy in the routing process. With this end in view, all important papers published between 2000 and 2015 are classified under eight categories including 'Mobility-Aware', 'Thermal-Aware', 'Restriction of Location and Number of Relays', 'Link-aware', 'Cluster- and Tree-Based', 'Cross-Layer', 'Opportunistic', and 'Medium Access Control'. We, then, provide a full description of the statistical analysis of each category in relation to all papers, current hybrid protocols, and the type of simulators used in each paper. Next, we analyze the distribution of papers in each category during various years. Moreover, for each category, the advantages and disadvantages as well as the number of issued papers in different years are given. We also analyze the type of layer and deployment of mathematical models or algorithmic techniques in each category. Finally, after introducing certain important protocols for each category, the goals, advantages, and disadvantages of the protocols are discussed and compared with each other.

Modeling induction and routing to monitor hospitalized patients in multi-hop mobility-aware body area sensor networks

In wireless body area sensor networks (WBASNs), energy efficiency is an area of extreme significance. At first, we present a mathematical model for a non-invasive inductive link which is used to recharge the battery of an implanted biomedical device (pacemaker). Afterwards, we propose a distance-aware relaying energy-efficient (DARE) and mutual information-based DARE (MI-DARE) routing protocols for multihop mobility-aware body area sensor networks (MM-BASNs). Both the routing protocols and the non-invasive inductive link model are tested with the consideration of eight patients in a hospital unit under different topologies, where the vital signs of each patient are monitored through seven on-body sensors and an implanted pacemaker. To reduce energy consumption of the network, the sensors communicate with a sink via an on-body relay which is fixed on the chest of each patient. The behavior (static/mobile) and position of the sink are changed in each topology, and the impact of mobility due to postural changes of the patient(s) arms, legs, and head is also investigated. The MI-DARE protocol further prolongs the network lifetime by minimizing the number of transmissions. Simulation results show that the proposed techniques outperform contemporary schemes in terms of the selected performance metrics.

Distributed Denial of Service Attack Source Detection Using Efficient Traceback Technique (ETT) in Cloud-Assisted Healthcare Environment

Security and privacy are the first and foremost concerns that should be given special attention when dealing with Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). As WBAN sensors operate in an unattended environment and carry critical patient health information, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the major attacks in WBAN environment that not only exhausts the available resources but also influence the reliability of information being transmitted. This research work is an extension of our previous work in which a machine learning based attack detection algorithm is proposed to detect DDoS attack in WBAN environment. However, in order to avoid complexity, no consideration was given to the traceback mechanism. During traceback, the challenge lies in reconstructing the attack path leading to identify the attack source. Among existing traceback techniques, Probabilistic Packet Marking (PPM) approach is the most commonly used technique in conventional IP- based networks. However, since marking probability assignment has significant effect on both the convergence time and performance of a scheme, it is not directly applicable in WBAN environment due to high convergence time and overhead on intermediate nodes. Therefore, in this paper we have proposed a new scheme called Efficient Traceback Technique (ETT) based on Dynamic Probability Packet Marking (DPPM) approach and uses MAC header in place of IP header. Instead of using fixed marking probability, the proposed scheme uses variable marking probability based on the number of hops travelled by a packet to reach the target node. Finally, path reconstruction algorithms are proposed to traceback an attacker. Evaluation and simulation results indicate that the proposed solution outperforms fixed PPM in terms of convergence time and computational overhead on nodes.