Network selection in cognitive radio enabled Wireless Body Area Networks

In recent years, the great interest in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) has been aroused significantly due to the advancement in wireless communications. In wireless communication, all WBAN nodes that monitor the human body's vital functions transfer information to a central sink node, which is directly connected to a Cognitive Radio enabled Controller called CRC. To transfer this information from a CRC to an e-health server, it requires long-range wireless networks, such as UMTS, LTE, WiMAX, WiFi, and satellite internet provider. It is challenging for a CRC to select the best networks for different WBAN data traffic, such as emergency mandatory, delay sensitive, and general monitoring. This paper proposes a scheme for selecting the best network from the available networks depending on the Quality of Service(QoS) requirements for different WBAN applications. Different multiple attribute decision-making algorithms are used in the proposed scheme. Numerical results and discussion reveal that the proposed scheme is effective in making a good network selection in situations where there is a conflict among different QoS requirements for different WBAN applications.     

LIMAP: A Lightweight Multilayer Authentication Protocol for WBAN

Wireless Personal Communications - Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are emerging technologies used in the medicinal market for various applications. They connect sensors throughout the human...     

无线体域网节能MAC协议综论(英文)

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of key energy-efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). At the outset, we outline the crucial attributes of a good MAC protocol for WBAN. Several sources that contribute to the energy inefficiency of WBAN are identified, and features of the various MAC protocols qualitatively compared. Then, we further investigate some representative TDMA-based energy-efficient MAC protocols for WBAN by emphasizing their strength...     

A novel nest-based scheduling method for mobile wireless body area networks

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) comprise various sensors to monitor and collect various vital signals, such as blood pressure, pulse, heartbeat, body temperature, and blood sugar. A dense and mobile WBAN often suffers from interference, which causes serious problems, such as wasting energy and degrading throughput. In reality, not all of the sensors in WBAN need to be active at the same time. Therefore, they can be divided into different groups so that each group works in turn to avoid interference. In this paper, a Nest-Based WBAN Scheduling (NBWS) algorithm is proposed to cluster sensors of the same types in a single or multiple WBANs into different groups to avoid interference. Particularly, we borrow the graph coloring theory to schedule all groups to work using a Time Division for Multimodal Sensor (TDMS) group scheduling model. Both theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed NBWS algorithm performs better in terms of frequency of collisions, transmission delay, system throughput, and energy consumption compared to the counterpart methods.     

Self-heat controlling energy efficient OPOT routing protocol for WBAN

Wireless Networks - Recent technological advancements in miniaturization of sensor and wireless communication lead to development of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN). It is similar to Wireless...     

基于预测方法的无线体域网跨层优化研究

为改善无线体域网的能效和传输可靠性,该文针对其具有资源有限、信道质量波动频繁、所传输数据有异构性等特点,提出一种基于链路质量预测的跨层优化方案。通过对物理层、网络层和MAC层的松散耦合,自适应地选择传感器节点的传输功率,并且建立高效节能的端到端路由。仿真结果显示,该方案相对于已有的单层协议,整体提高了体域网的能量效率和传输可靠性。     

A survey of wireless technologies coexistence in WBAN: analysis and open research issues

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is the most convenient, cost-effective, accurate, and non-invasive technology for e-health monitoring. The performance of WBAN may be disturbed when coexisting with other wireless networks. Accordingly, this paper provides a comprehensive study and in-depth analysis of coexistence issues and interference mitigation solutions in WBAN technologies. A thorough survey of state-of-the art research in WBAN coexistence issues is conducted. The survey classified, discussed, and compared the studies according to the parameters used to analyze the coexistence problem. Solutions suggested by the studies are then classified according to the followed techniques and concomitant shortcomings are identified. Moreover, the coexistence problem in WBAN technologies is mathematically analyzed and formulas are derived for the probability of successful channel access for different wireless technologies with the coexistence of an interfering network. Finally, extensive simulations are conducted using OPNET with several real-life scenarios to evaluate the impact of coexistence interference on different WBAN technologies. In particular, three main WBAN wireless technologies are considered: IEEE 802.15.6, IEEE 802.15.4, and low-power WiFi. The mathematical analysis and the simulation results are discussed and the impact of interfering network on the different wireless technologies is compared and analyzed. The results show that an interfering network (e.g., standard WiFi) has an impact on the performance of WBAN and may disrupt its operation. In addition, using low-power WiFi for WBANs is investigated and proved to be a feasible option compared to other wireless technologies.     

A Secure Crypto Base Authentication and Communication Suite in Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) for IoT Applications

To monitor the functions of human body and their surroundings Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is used, which are based on low powered and light weight wireless sensors devices. WBAN highly supports numerous applications but this study will focus on the security of ubiquitous healthcare applications. In E-health research monitoring the critical data in terms of security has become a major challenge as WBAN deals with various threats day by day. Therefore the design of secure and reasonably resource optimal algorithms with a robust key generation and management scheme is today’s need. There must be only authorized user’s who can have access to patient related data; otherwise it can be exploited by anyone. This proposed study is aiming to formulate the two security suite for WBAN, which comprises on KBS keys, KAISC and Hash algorithm three improved versions of key management procedures and authentication procedure respectively. Firstly the KBS Keys and improved Hashing suite which is an independent and adaptive key management and authentication scheme for improving the security of WBANs will be used, and secondly KAISC will be used for inter-sensor communication and key management security scheme. All above mentioned procedures will be suitably blend with the encryption and decryption process which will securely send the patient’s critical data to the base station and further to the concerned doctor. The novelty of work is that the proposed methodology is not only simple but also advanced and much secured procedure of key generation and management that will be further validated by the performance analysis. This technique will be beneficial for the continuous monitoring of patient’s critical data in remote areas also.     

Energy efficient and reliable routing in wireless body area networks based on reinforcement learning and fuzzy logic

Wireless Networks - In Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs), on the one hand, the energy of nodes is limited. On the other hand, the network topology often changes due to human movement or posture...     

无线体域网资源分配研究综述

无线体域网旨在提供实时的、无处不在的人体监测来执行独立的早期预测、诊断和身体跟踪响应的护理,并日渐成为研究和应用的热点。随着WBAN在人类日常生活中的重要性日趋突出,专用于无线体域网的标准IEEE802.15.6于2012年颁布。本文主要针对多个体域网网间和单个体域网内部的资源分配进行研究,考虑WBAN的异质性以及传感器节点的异质性,同时对体域网资源分配的研究现状和不足进行分析和总结。最后,分析了无线体域网资源分配需要解决的问题和未来研究的方向。     

Fairness-aware radio resource management for medical interoperability between WBAN and WLAN

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) in the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) bands have been increasingly adopted for various medical applications. Due to the shared nature of the ISM bands, when a WBAN coexists with a wireless local area network (WLAN), performance of WBAN may significantly degrade because of asymmetric attributes between WBAN and WLAN such as transmit power and response time. In this paper, we propose a novel channel access protocol for achieving effective channel sharing in the aspect of efficiency and fairness, which adaptively controls the contention window size of WLAN based on the delay information of WBAN. Our extensive simulation results for real-time electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring show that the proposed scheme can guarantee the required quality of service of WBAN while insignificant degradation of WLAN performance.     

Interference Mitigation in Wireless Body Area Networks Using Modified and Modulated MHP

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) is an emerging area in field of remote health monitoring and telemedicine. UWB is a preferred candidate for the WBAN as it provides very high data rate at minimal cost and power consumption. Since the UWB-WBAN is wireless, it will be affected by interference from existing wireless personal and local area networks. Interference immunity is a major issue in wireless Body Area Networks as patients’ vital data containing details of functioning of vital organs and blood flow are carried. The paper investigates the performance of modified and modulated hermite pulses (MHP) for narrowband interference mitigation in the 4,940–4,990 MHz band IEEE 802.11y Public Safety band interference. This 50 MHz interfering band will be a critical interferer due to the higher power levels of interfering system. Performance of the proposed technique have been shown in comparison with Gaussian pulse shapes and has been further validated by transmitting ECG and MRI data by it in presence of strong interference.     

Investigation and Modeling of the UWB On-Body Propagation Channel

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are becoming an increasingly important part of the wireless communication system. In such a communication system various electronic devices carried by a person on his body can be connected. In this paper, we investigate the UWB body area propagation channel. The channel characterization is based on UWB on-body channel measurements. This paper describes the measurement campaign and the basic characteristics of the body area propagation channel extracted from measurement data.     

ISAKA: Improved Secure Authentication and Key Agreement protocol for WBAN

Wireless Personal Communications - Internet of Things (IoT) is a revolution which has influenced the lifestyle of human. Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN)s are IoT-based applications which have a...     

FEELS: fuzzy based energy efficient and low SAR routing protocol for wireless body area networks

Wireless Networks - A patient's body gets exposed to RF radiation due to node data transmissions in a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). Therefore, in addition to energy efficiency, the adverse...     

A machine learning-based dynamic link power control in wearable sensing devices

Wireless Networks - The main research challenges on developing Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) are related to the quality of the communication link and energy consumption. This article combines...     

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.     

Proposal of a hierarchical topology and spatial reuse superframe for enhancing throughput of a cluster‐based WBAN

A cluster topology was proposed with the assumption of zero noise to improve the performance of wireless body area networks (WBANs). However, in WBANs, the transmission power should be reduced as low as possible to avoid the effect of electromagnetic waves on the human body and to extend the lifetime of a battery. Therefore, in this work, we consider a bit error rate for a cluster‐based WBAN and analyze the performance of the system while the transmission of sensors and cluster headers (CHs) is controlled. Moreover, a hierarchical topology is proposed for the cluster‐based WBAN to further improve the throughput of the system; this proposed system is called as the hierarchical cluster WBAN. The hierarchical cluster WBAN is combined with a transmission control scheme, that is, complete control, spatial reuse superframe, to increase the throughput. The proposed system is analyzed and evaluated based on several factors of the system model, such as signal‐to‐noise ratio, number of clusters, and number of sensors. The calculation result indicates that the proposed hierarchical cluster WBAN outperforms the cluster‐based WBAN in all analyzed scenarios.     

Channel and Error Modeling for Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have been developed as the human-body monitoring systems to predict, diagnose, and treat diseases. Since the signal transmission in WBANs takes place in or around the human body the channel fading significantly affects packet error rate and overal network performance. In this work, we discuss the channel models and error performance formalization for WBANs. In the first phase of this work, we study channel fading models for WBANs. In the second phase, we survey the models which calculate the error performance metrics in WBANs. We select most appropriate error models to design and develop the error performance evaluation models for IEEE 802.15.6-based WBANs and show how to integrate them with the error model in Medium Access Control (MAC). We then discuss integrated PHY and MAC error performance in WBANs.     

A game theory-based approach for the study of inter-interference in coexisting wireless body area networks

A wireless body area network (WBAN) enables the continuous monitoring of health conditions including heart rate, temperature, and glucose levels. It is composed of several sensors that are placed on the body. The network's performance is significantly affected by the unpredictable movements of the human body. Due to the varying proximities between them, the existence of several WBANs creates a challenge when mobility is involved. In this fictitious scenario, we consider a park area with both mobile and static WBANs or WBAN-equipped individuals passing through the park who have varying degrees of mobility. When a mobile WBAN passes a static WBAN and is within a minimum distance of the static WBAN, they pair up and immediately interfere. Inter-interference caused by WBANs operating in a limited area causes packet loss and performance deterioration. In this work, static WBAN locations are optimised to minimise interference and system inter-interference problems are addressed by a game theoretic method. This paper formulates a flexible game theoretic framework to study WBAN coexistence using the expected pay-off function considering a two-player game. It is observed from the results obtained that the probability of interference caused by fast mobile WBANs is reduced to a maximum of 50% compared with that caused by slow mobile WBANs thereby reducing the need for relocation of static WBANs.