A Simulation Study of TaMAC Protocol using Network Simulator 2

A Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is expected to play a significant role in future healthcare system. It interconnects low-cost and intelligent sensor nodes in, on, or around a human body to serve a variety of medical applications. It can be used to diagnose and treat patients with chronic diseases such as hypertensions, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. The lightweight sensor nodes integrated in WBAN require low-power operation, which can be achieved using different optimization techniques. We introduce a Traffic-adaptive MAC protocol (TaMAC) for WBAN that supports dual wakeup mechanisms for normal, emergency, and on-demand traffic. In this letter, the TaMAC protocol is simulated using a well-known Network Simulator 2 (NS-2). The problem of multiple emergency nodes is solved using both wakeup radio and CSMA/CA protocol. The power consumption, delay, and throughput performance are closely compared with beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol using extensive simulations.     

A Comprehensive Survey of Wireless Body Area Networks

Recent advances in microelectronics and integrated circuits, system-on-chip design, wireless communication and intelligent low-power sensors have allowed the realization of a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). A WBAN is a collection of low-power, miniaturized, invasive/non-invasive lightweight wireless sensor nodes that monitor the human body functions and the surrounding environment. In addition, it supports a number of innovative and interesting applications such as ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, interactive gaming, and military applications. In this paper, the fundamental mechanisms of WBAN including architecture and topology, wireless implant communication, low-power Medium Access Control (MAC) and routing protocols are reviewed. A comprehensive study of the proposed technologies for WBAN at Physical (PHY), MAC, and Network layers is presented and many useful solutions are discussed for each layer. Finally, numerous WBAN applications are highlighted.     

A Lightweight Security Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks: Design, Energy Evaluation and Proposed Microprocessor Design

In order for wireless body area networks to meet widespread adoption, a number of security implications must be explored to promote and maintain fundamental medical ethical principles and social expectations. As a result, integration of security functionality to sensor nodes is required. Integrating security functionality to a wireless sensor node increases the size of the stored software program in program memory, the required time that the sensor's microprocessor needs to process the data and the wireless network traffic which is exchanged among sensors. This security overhead has dominant impact on the energy dissipation which is strongly related to the lifetime of the sensor, a critical aspect in wireless sensor network (WSN) technology. Strict definition of the security functionality, complete hardware model (microprocessor and radio), WBAN topology and the structure of the medium access control (MAC) frame are required for an accurate estimation of the energy that security introduces into the WBAN. In this work, we define a lightweight security scheme for WBAN, we estimate the additional energy consumption that the security scheme introduces to WBAN based on commercial available off-the-shelf hardware components (microprocessor and radio), the network topology and the MAC frame. Furthermore, we propose a new microcontroller design in order to reduce the energy consumption of the system. Experimental results and comparisons with other works are given.     

TraPy-MAC: Traffic Priority Aware Medium Access Control Protocol for Wireless Body Area Network

Recently, Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) has witnessed significant attentions in research and product development due to the growing number of sensor-based applications in healthcare domain. Design of efficient and effective Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol is one of the fundamental research themes in WBAN. Static on-demand slot allocation to patient data is the main approach adopted in the design of MAC protocol in literature, without considering the type of patient data specifically the level of severity on patient data. This leads to the degradation of the performance of MAC protocols considering effectiveness and traffic adjustability in realistic medical environments. In this context, this paper proposes a Traffic Priority-Aware MAC (TraPy-MAC) protocol for WBAN. It classifies patient data into emergency and non-emergency categories based on the severity of patient data. The threshold value aided classification considers a number of parameters including type of sensor, body placement location, and data transmission time for allocating dedicated slots patient data. Emergency data are not required to carry out contention and slots are allocated by giving the due importance to threshold value of vital sign data. The contention for slots is made efficient in case of non-emergency data considering threshold value in slot allocation. Moreover, the slot allocation to emergency and non-emergency data are performed parallel resulting in performance gain in channel assignment. Two algorithms namely, Detection of Severity on Vital Sign data (DSVS), and ETS Slots allocation based on the Severity on Vital Sign (ETS-SVS) are developed for calculating threshold value and resolving the conflicts of channel assignment, respectively. Simulations are performed in ns2 and results are compared with the state-of-the-art MAC techniques. Analysis of results attests the benefit of TraPy-MAC in comparison with the state-of-the-art MAC in channel assignment in realistic medical environments.     

Seamless Interworking Architecture for WBAN in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks with QoS Guarantees

The IEEE 802.15.6 standard is a communication standard optimized for low-power and short-range in-body/on-body nodes to serve a variety of medical, consumer electronics and entertainment applications. Providing high mobility with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) to a WBAN user in heterogeneous wireless networks is a challenging task. A WBAN uses a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to gather data from body sensors and forwards it to a remote server through wide range wireless networks. In this paper, we present a coexistence study of WBAN with Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) and Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs). The main issue is interworking of WBAN in heterogenous wireless networks including seamless handover, QoS, emergency services, cooperation and security. We propose a Seamless Interworking Architecture (SIA) for WBAN in heterogenous wireless networks based on a cost function. The cost function is based on power consumption and data throughput costs. Our simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms typical approaches in terms of throughput, delay and packet loss rate.     

A Privacy Preservation Secure Cross Layer Protocol Design for IoT Based Wireless Body Area Networks Using ECDSA Framework

Internet of Things (IoT) provides the collection of devices in different applications in which Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is placed an crucial role. The WBAN is a wireless sensor network consisting of sensor nodes that is collected from IoT which is implanted in the human body to remotely monitor the patient’s physiological signals without affecting their routine work. During emergency situations or life-threatening situations there is a need for a better performance to deliver the actual data with an efficient transmission and there is still a challenge in efficient remote monitoring. So, in this paper an application for cross layer protocol design architecture of Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) has been proposed. It replaces the protocol architecture of WBAN (IEEE 802.15.6), WMAN (IEEE 802.16), and 3G, WLAN (IEEE 802.11) or wired networks. The lightweight secure system provides secure data transmission and access control mechanisms by using ECDA-based proxy signature algorithm. The efficiency of the system is implemented using simulation models that were developed using NS-2, and the results obtained shows an optimum solution in terms of delay, PDR, throughput, jitter, packet transmission time, dropping ratio and packet delivery. The viability of the methodology proposed is illustrated by the response.     

RACOON: A Multiuser QoS Design for Mobile Wireless Body Area Networks

In this study, Random Contention-based Resource Allocation (RACOON) medium access control (MAC) protocol is proposed to support the quality of service (QoS) for multi-user mobile wireless body area networks (WBANs). Different from existing QoS designs that focus on a single WBAN, a multiuser WBAN QoS should further consider both inter-WBAN interference and inter-WBAN priorities. Similar problems have been studied in both overlapped wireless local area networks (WLANs) and Bluetooth piconets that need QoS supports. However, these solutions are designed for non-medical transmissions that do not consider any priority scheme for medical applications. Most importantly, these studies focus on only static or low mobility networks. Network mobility of WBANs will introduce unnecessary inter-network collisions and energy waste, which are not considered by these solutions. The proposed multiuser-QoS protocol, RACOON, simultaneously satisfies the inter WBAN QoS requirements and overcomes the performance degradation caused by WBAN mobility. Simulation results verify that RACOON provides better latency and energy control, as compared with WBAN QoS protocols without considering the inter-WBAN requirements.     

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) Design Techniques and Performance Evaluation

In recent years interest in the application of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) for patient monitoring applications has grown significantly. A WBAN can be used to develop patient monitoring systems which offer flexibility to medical staff and mobility to patients. Patients monitoring could involve a range of activities including data collection from various body sensors for storage and diagnosis, transmitting data to remote medical databases, and controlling medical appliances, etc. Also, WBANs could operate in an interconnected mode to enable remote patient monitoring using telehealth/e-health applications. A WBAN can also be used to monitor athletes’ performance and assist them in training activities. For such applications it is very important that a WBAN collects and transmits data reliably, and in a timely manner to a monitoring entity. In order to address these issues, this paper presents WBAN design techniques for medical applications. We examine the WBAN design issues with particular emphasis on the design of MAC protocols and power consumption profiles of WBAN. Some simulation results are presented to further illustrate the performances of various WBAN design techniques.     

一种基于双功能节点的节能多跳路由协议

针对无线传感网融合节点位置欠佳和传感器节点的能量消耗不均会严重影响网络生存周期的问题,提出了一种基于双功能节点的节能多跳路由协议。该协议综合考虑节点的能量、位置以及所在层次区域等多种因素,通过引入通信节点来重组网格和中继网格间路由,减轻了网格融合节点的开销,均衡了网络的能量分布。仿真结果表明,该路由协议的网络生命周期比Multi hop EEBCDA等协议至少延长17.5%,且节点的能量消耗更加均衡。     

A Green Media Access Method for IEEE 802.15.6 Wireless Body Area Network

It is of utmost importance to conserve battery energy to the maximum possible extent in WBAN nodes while collecting and transferring medical data. The IEEE 802.15.6 WBAN standard does not specify any method to conserve energy. This paper focuses on a method to conserve energy in IEEE 802.15.6 WBAN nodes when using CSMA/CA, while simultaneously restricting data delivery delay to the required value as specified in medical applications. The technique is to allow the nodes to sleep all the times except for receiving beacons and for transmitting data frames whenever a data frame enters an empty buffer. The energy consumed by the nodes and the average latency of data frame for periodical arrival of data are found out analytically. The analytical results are validated and also the proposed method is compared with other energy conserving schemes, using Castalia simulation studies. The proposed method shows superior performance in both device lifetime and latency of emergency medical data.     

基于医疗监护的无线体域网接收系统设计

介绍基于医疗监护无线体域网的体表节点人体信道通信技术,从整体结构、解调方式两方面阐述抗中心频率偏差、抗时钟频率偏移的无线体域网通信接收系统设计,测试并验证系统性能。     

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack in Cloud- Assisted Wireless Body Area Networks: A Systematic Literature Review

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have emerged as a promising technology that has shown enormous potential in improving the quality of healthcare, and has thus found a broad range of medical applications from ubiquitous health monitoring to emergency medical response systems. The huge amount of highly sensitive data collected and generated by WBAN nodes requires an ascendable and secure storage and processing infrastructure. Given the limited resources of WBAN nodes for storage and processing, the integration of WBANs and cloud computing may provide a powerful solution. However, despite the benefits of cloud-assisted WBAN, several security issues and challenges remain. Among these, data availability is the most nagging security issue. The most serious threat to data availability is a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that directly affects the all-time availability of a patient’s data. The existing solutions for standalone WBANs and sensor networks are not applicable in the cloud. The purpose of this review paper is to identify the most threatening types of DDoS attacks affecting the availability of a cloud-assisted WBAN and review the state-of-the-art detection mechanisms for the identified DDoS attacks.     

基于能量和距离的无线传感器网络路由协议

无线传感器网络(Wireless Sensor Networks, WSNs)是一种新兴的传感器网络。Leach(Low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy)协议是WSNs中最流行的簇类协议之一,它通过概率模型选择簇头,并且周期性地改变簇头来实现最大化的网络覆盖率和网络寿命。本文通过网络中节点的能量和所处的地理位置信息,对Leach协议中节点成为簇头的概率公式进行修正,从而改进协议的簇头选择算法,平衡网络的能耗,达到延长无线传感器网络寿命的目的。基于NS2(Network Simulator Version 2)平台的实验结果证明,改进的Leach算法可以延长WSNs的寿命。     

Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA Protocol for WBAN Medical Scenario through DTMC Model

The newly drafted IEEE 802.15.6 standard for Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) has been concentrating on a numerous medical and non-medical applications. Such short range wireless communication standard offers ultra-low power consumption with variable data rates from few Kbps to Mbps in, on or around the proximity of the human body. In this paper, the performance analysis of carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme based on IEEE 802.15.6 standard in terms of throughput, reliability, clear channel assessment (CCA) failure probability, packet drop probability, and end-to-end delay has been presented. We have developed a discrete-time Markov chain (DTMC) to significantly evaluate the performances of IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA under non-ideal channel condition having saturated traffic condition including node wait time and service time. We also visualize that, as soon as the payload length increases the CCA failure probability increases, which results in lower node’s reliability. Also, we have calculated the end-to-end delay in order to prioritize the node wait time cause by backoff and retransmission. The user priority (UP) wise DTMC analysis has been performed to show the importance of the standard especially for medical scenario.     

Throughput and delay analysis of IEEE 802.15.6-based CSMA/CA protocol

The IEEE 802.15.6 is a new communication standard on Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) that focuses on a variety of medical, Consumer Electronics (CE) and entertainment applications. In this paper, the throughput and delay performance of the IEEE 802.15.6 is presented. Numerical formulas are derived to determine the maximum throughput and minimum delay limits of the IEEE 802.15.6 for an ideal channel with no transmission errors. These limits are derived for different frequency bands and data rates. Our analysis is validated by extensive simulations using a custom C+?+ simulator. Based on analytical and simulation results, useful conclusions are derived for network provisioning and packet size optimization for different applications.     

IEEE 802.11 WLAN多业务综合传输性能分析

研究了IEEE802．11标准中的多址接入协议(MAC)在数据、语音业务综合传输情况下的性能。数据业务由分布协调功能(DCF)传送,语音业务由点协调功能(PCF)传送。通过仿真,评估了协议参数对网络通过量和平均MAC协议数据单元(MPDU)时延的影响。确定在一定数据通过量前提下IEEE802．11能支持的最大语音用户个数。特别地,语音业务对时延抖动敏感,指出了影响其抖动性能的主要因素。数值结果表明,合理选择参数对性能至关重要,IEEE802．11性能必须在语音站点数量和数据业务通过量之间进行折衷。最后。通过理论推导验证了仿真结果的正确性。     

A Comprehensive Study of Channel Estimation for WBAN-based Healthcare Systems: Feasibility of Using Multiband UWB

Wireless personal area network (WPAN) is an emerging in wireless technology for short range indoor and outdoor communication applications. A more specific category of WPAN is the wireless body area network (WBAN) used for health monitoring. On the other hand, multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) ultra-wideband (UWB) comes with a number of desirable features at the physical layer for wireless communications, for example, very high data rate. One big challenge in adoption of multiband UWB in WBAN is the fact that channel estimation becomes difficult under the constraint of extremely low transmission power. Moreover, the heterogeneous environment of WBAN causes a dense multipath wireless channel. Therefore, effective channel estimation is required in the receiver of WBAN-based healthcare system that uses multiband UWB. In this paper, we first outline the MB-OFDM UWB system. Then, we present an overview of channel estimation techniques proposed/investigated for multiband UWB communications with emphasis on their strengths and weaknesses. Useful suggestions are given to overcome the weaknesses so that these methods can be particularly useful for WBAN channels. Also, we analyze the comparative performances of the techniques using computer simulation in order to find the energy-efficient channel estimation methods for WBAN-based healthcare systems.     

A WBAN-based Real-time Electroencephalogram Monitoring System: Design and Implementation

In this study, a flexible wireless body area network (WBAN) node platform has been designed and implemented based on the Zigbee technology. In order to provide wide range WBAN for health monitoring, a Zigbee/Internet Gateway (ZiGW) has also been developed rather than using a PDA or a host PC to connect different WBANs by using the Internet as the communication infrastructure. The proposed body sensor node platform promises a cost-effective, flexible platform for developing physical sensor node in real-time health monitoring. The ZiGW can provide an effective method to connect WBAN with the Internet. In this work, we present the implementation of an Electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring system using the proposed methods. In this proposed system, real-time EEG signals can be remotely monitored by physicians via Internet, and the collected EEG data is stored in the online EEG database which can be shared with physicians or researchers for further analysis.     

基于BA无标度网络的WSNs拓扑优化模型

由于无线传感器能量受限,最大化网络生命周期成为优化网络拓扑首要考虑的问题。基于BA无标度理论,提出了一种WSNs拓扑优化模型（WTOM）。在网络中引入超级节点,结合粒子群算法合理地划分整个网络;在节点间建立多因素为导向的虚拟力场,利用虚拟力调整超级节点的部署位置,实现网络能量的均衡消耗,通过对关键节点的保护,提高网络的抗毁鲁棒性。经理论分析和实验证明,该网络不仅继承了BA无标度网络的特征还具有小世界特性;同时该动态拓扑延长了网络的生命周期,提高了网络面向数据收集的节能性。