Performance evaluation of IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA-based CANet WBAN

International audienceIn the recent few years, Wireless Body Area networks (WBANs) showed what can be done remotely to greatly improve healthcare systems and facilitate the life to elderly. One of the recent ehealth projects is CANet which aims at embedding a WBAN into a cane to monitor elderly/patients. Our main goal in this paper is to evaluate the performances of the emerging standard IEEE 802.15.6 when applied on different sensors from CANet eHealth project. At this end, we defined a small scenario extracted from CANet, and we assigned IEEE 802.15.6 priorities to the selected cane sensors according to their inherent characteristics. We considered further the mandatory RAP period of IEEE 802.15.6 superframe under the beacon period with superframes mode since it supports both normal and urgent traffic. Our results showed that the contention access behavior of this considered model of simulation depends on several constraints (including the nature of the studied application and the traffic types and frequency). This would be necessarily taken into account to get the most advantage of all features offered by WBANs standard IEEE 802.15.6. Keywords—Medium Access Control (MAC), wireless body area networks (WBANs), E-health, CANet project, wireless sensor networks (WSN), IEEE 802.15.6

Reliable, Context-Aware and Energy-Efficient Architecture for Wireless Body Area Networks in Sports Applications

RÉSUMÉ Un Réseau Corporel Sans Fil (RCSF, Wireless Body Area Network en anglais ou WBAN) permet de collecter de l'information à partir de capteurs corporels. Cette information est envoyée à un hub qui la transforme et qui peut aussi effectuer d'autres fonctions comme gérer des événements corporels, fusionner les données à partir des capteurs, percevoir d’autres paramètres, exécuter les fonctions d’une interface d’utilisateur, et faire un lien vers des infrastructures de plus haut niveau et d’autres parties prenantes. La réduction de la consommation d'énergie d’un RCSF est un des aspects les plus importants qui doit être amélioré lors de sa conception. Cet aspect peut impliquer le développement de protocoles de Contrôles d'Accès au Support (CAS, Media Access Control en anglais ou MAC), protocoles de transport et de routage plus efficients. Le contrôle de la congestion est un autre des facteurs les plus importants dans la conception d’un RCSF, parce que la congestion influe directement sur la Qualité De Service (QDS, Quality of Service en anglais ou QoS) et l’efficience en énergie du réseau. La congestion dans un RCSF peut produire une grande perte de paquets et une haute consommation d’énergie. La QDS est directement impactée par la perte de paquets. L’implémentation de mesures additionnelles est nécessaire pour atténuer l’impact sur la communication des RCSF. Les protocoles de CAS pour RCSF devraient permettre aux capteurs corporels d’accéder rapidement au canal de communication et d’envoyer les données au hub, surtout pour les événements urgents tout en réduisant la consommation d’énergie. Les protocoles de transport pour RCSF doivent fournir de la fiabilité bout-à-bout et de la QDS pour tout le réseau. Cette tâche peut être accomplie par la réduction du ratio de perte de paquets (Packet Loss Ratio en anglais ou PLR) et de la latence tout en gardant l'équité et la faible consommation d'énergie entre les noeuds. Le standard IEEE 802.15.6 suggère un protocole de CAS qui est destiné à être applicable à tous les types de RCSF; toutefois, ce protocole peut être amélioré pour les RCSF utilisés dans le domaine du sport, où la gestion du trafic pourrait être différente d’autres réseaux. Le standard IEEE 802.15.6 comprend la QDS, mais cela ne suggère aucun protocole de transport ou système de contrôle du débit. Le but principal de ce projet de recherche est de concevoir une architecture pour RCSF en trois phases : (i) Conception d’un mécanisme sensible au contexte et efficient en énergie pour fournir une QDS aux RCSF; (ii) Conception d’un mécanisme fiable et efficient en énergie pour fournir une récupération des paquets perdus et de l’équité dans les RCSF; et (iii) Conception d’un système de contrôle du débit sensible au contexte pour fournir un contrôle de congestion aux RCSF. Finalement, ce projet de recherche propose une architecture fiable, sensible au contexte et efficiente en énergie pour RCSF utilisés dans le domaine du sport. Cette architecture fait face à quatre défis : l'efficacité de l'énergie, la sensibilité au contexte, la qualité de service et la fiabilité. La mise en place de cette solution aidera à l’amélioration des compétences, de la performance, de l’endurance et des protocoles d’entraînement des athlètes, ainsi qu’à la détection des points faibles. Cette solution pourrait être prolongée à l’amélioration de la qualité de vie des enfants, des personnes malades ou âgées, ou encore aux domaines militaires, de la sécurité et du divertissement. L’évaluation des protocoles et schémas proposés a été faite par simulations programmées avec le simulateur OMNeT++ et le système Castalia. Premièrement, le protocole de CAS proposé a été comparé avec les protocoles de CAS suivants : IEEE 802.15.6, IEEE 802.15.4 et T-MAC (Timeout MAC). Deuxièmement, le protocole de CAS proposé a été comparé avec le standard IEEE 802.15.6 avec et sans l’utilisation du protocole de transport proposé. Finalement, le protocole de CAS proposé et le standard IEEE 802.15.6 ont été comparés avec et sans l’utilisation du système de contrôle du débit proposé. Le protocole de CAS proposé surpasse les protocoles de CAS IEEE 802.15.6, IEEE 802.15.4 et T-MAC dans le pourcentage de pertes de paquets d’urgence et normaux, l’efficacité en énergie, et la latence du trafic d’urgence et du trafic normal. Le protocole de CAS proposé utilisé avec le protocole du transport proposé surpasse la performance du standard IEEE 802.15.6 dans le pourcentage de perte de paquets avec ou sans trafic d’urgence, l’efficacité en énergie, et la latence du trafic normal. Le système de contrôle du débit proposé a amélioré la performance du protocole de CAS proposé et du standard IEEE 802.15.6 dans le pourcentage de perte de paquets avec ou sans trafic d’urgence, l’efficacité en énergie, et la latence du trafic d’urgence.----------ABSTRACT Information collected from body sensors in a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is sent to a hub or coordinator which processes the information and can also perform other functions such as managing body events, merging data from sensors, sensing other parameters, performing the functions of a user interface and bridging the WBAN to higher-level infrastructure and other stakeholders. The reduction of the power consumption of a WBAN is one of the most important aspects to be improved when designing a WBAN. This challenge might imply the development of more efficient Medium Access Control (MAC), transport and routing protocols. Congestion control is another of the most important factors when a WBAN is designed, due to its direct impact in the Quality of Service (QoS) and the energy efficiency of the network. The presence of congestion in a WBAN can produce a big packet loss and high energy consumption. The QoS is also impacted directly by the packet loss. The implementation of additional measures is necessary to mitigate the impact on WBAN communications. The MAC protocols for WBANs should allow body sensors to get quick access to the channel and send data to the hub, especially in emergency events while reducing the power consumption. The transport protocols for WBANs must provide end-to-end reliability and QoS for the whole network. This task can be accomplished through the reduction of both the Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) and the latency while keeping fairness and low power consumption between nodes. The IEEE 802.15.6 standard suggests a MAC protocol which is intended to be applicable for all kinds of WBANs. Nonetheless, it could be improved for sports WBANs where the traffic-types handling could be different from other networks. The IEEE 802.15.6 standard supports QoS, but it does not suggest any transport protocol or rate control scheme. The main objective of this research project is to design an architecture for WBANs in three phases: (i) Designing a context-aware and energy-efficient mechanism for providing QoS in WBANs; (ii) Designing a reliable and energy-efficient mechanism to provide packet loss recovery and fairness in WBANs; and (iii) Designing a context-aware rate control scheme to provide congestion control in WBANs. Finally, this research project proposes a reliable, context-aware and energy-efficient architecture for WBANs used in sports applications, facing four challenges: energy efficiency, context awareness, quality of service and reliability. The benefits of this solution will help to improve skills, performance, endurance and training protocols of athletes, and deficiency detection. Also, it could be extended to enhance the quality of life of children, ill and elderly people, and to security, military and entertainment fields. The evaluation of the proposed protocols and schemes was made through simulations programed in the OMNeT++ simulator and the Castalia framework. First, the proposed MAC protocol was compared against the IEEE 802.15.6 MAC protocol, the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol and the T-MAC (Timeout MAC) protocol. Second, the proposed MAC protocol was compared with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard with and without the use of the proposed transport protocol. Finally, both the proposed MAC protocol and the IEEE 802.15.6 standard were compared with and without the use of the proposed rate control scheme. The proposed MAC protocol outperforms the IEEE 802.15.6 MAC protocol, the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol and the T-MAC protocol in the percentage of emergency and normal packet loss, the energy effectiveness, and the latency of emergency and normal traffic. The proposed MAC protocol working along with the proposed transport protocol outperforms the IEEE 802.15.6 standard in the percentage of the packet loss with or without emergency traffic, the energy effectiveness, and the latency of normal traffic. The proposed rate control scheme improved the performance of both the proposed MAC protocol and the IEEE 802.15.6 standard in the percentage of the packet loss with or without emergency traffic, the energy effectiveness and the latency of emergency traffic

A survey on wireless body area networks: architecture, security challenges and research opportunities.

In the era of communication technologies, wireless healthcare networks enable innovative applications to enhance the quality of patients’ lives, provide useful monitoring tools for caregivers, and allows timely intervention. However, due to the sensitive information within the Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs), insecure data violates the patients’ privacy and may consequently lead to improper medical diagnosis and/or treatment. Achieving a high level of security and privacy in WBAN involves various challenges due to its resource limitations and critical applications. In this paper, a comprehensive survey of the WBAN technology is provided, with a particular focus on the security and privacy concerns along with their countermeasures, followed by proposed research directions and open issues

Bioelectronic Sensor Nodes for Internet of Bodies

Energy-efficient sensing with Physically-secure communication for bio-sensors on, around and within the Human Body is a major area of research today for development of low-cost healthcare, enabling continuous monitoring and/or secure, perpetual operation. These devices, when used as a network of nodes form the Internet of Bodies (IoB), which poses certain challenges including stringent resource constraints (power/area/computation/memory), simultaneous sensing and communication, and security vulnerabilities as evidenced by the DHS and FDA advisories. One other major challenge is to find an efficient on-body energy harvesting method to support the sensing, communication, and security sub-modules. Due to the limitations in the harvested amount of energy, we require reduction of energy consumed per unit information, making the use of in-sensor analytics/processing imperative. In this paper, we review the challenges and opportunities in low-power sensing, processing and communication, with possible powering modalities for future bio-sensor nodes. Specifically, we analyze, compare and contrast (a) different sensing mechanisms such as voltage/current domain vs time-domain, (b) low-power, secure communication modalities including wireless techniques and human-body communication, and (c) different powering techniques for both wearable devices and implants.Comment: 30 pages, 5 Figures. This is a pre-print version of the article which has been accepted for Publication in Volume 25 of the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering (2023). Only Personal Use is Permitte

Wireless body area network revisited

Rapid growth of wireless body area networks (WBANs) technology allowed the fast and secured acquisition as well as exchange of vast amount of data information in diversified fields. WBANs intend to simplify and improve the speed, accuracy, and reliability of communica-tions from sensors (interior motors) placed on and/or close to the human body, reducing the healthcare cost remarkably. However, the secu-rity of sensitive data transfer using WBANs and subsequent protection from adversaries attack is a major issue. Depending on the types of applications, small and high sensitive sensors having several nodes obtained from invasive/non-invasive micro- and nano- technology can be installed on the human body to capture useful information. Lately, the use of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and integrated circuits in wireless communications (WCs) became widespread because of their low-power operation, intelligence, accuracy, and miniaturi-zation. IEEE 802.15.6 and 802.15.4j standards have already been set to specifically regulate the medical networks and WBANs. In this view, present communication provides an all-inclusive overview of the past development, recent progress, challenges and future trends of security technology related to WBANs

Peak Transmission Rate Resilient Crosslayer Broadcast for Body Area Networks

International audienc

A comprehensive review of wireless body area network

Recent development and advancement of information and communication technologies facilitate people in different dimensions of life. Most importantly, in the healthcare industry, this has become more and more involved with the information and communication technology-based services. One of the most important services is monitoring of remote patients, that enables the healthcare providers to observe, diagnose and prescribe the patients without being physically present. The advantage of miniaturization of sensor technologies gives the flexibility of installing in, on or off the body of patients, which is capable of forwarding physiological data wirelessly to remote servers. Such technology is named as Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). In this paper, WBAN architecture, communication technologies for WBAN, challenges and different aspects of WBAN are illustrated. This paper also describes the architectural limitations of existing WBAN communication frameworks. blueFurthermore, implementation requirements are presented based on IEEE 802.15.6 standard. Finally, as a source of motivation towards future development of research incorporating Software Defined Networking (SDN), Energy Harvesting (EH) and Blockchain technology into WBAN are also provided

Diseños de capa cruzada para redes inalámbricas de área corporal energéticamente eficientes: una revisión

RESUMEN: El diseño de capa cruzada se considera una poderosa alternativa para dar solución a las complejidades introducidas por las comunicaciones inalámbricas en redes de área corporal (WBAN), donde el modelo clásico de comunicaciones no ha exhibido un desempeño adecuado. Respecto al problema puntual de consumo de energía, hemos preparado la presente revisión de las publicaciones más relevantes que tratan la eficiencia energética para WBAN usando diseño de capa cruzada. En este artículo se proporciona una revisión exhaustiva de los avances en aproximaciones, protocolos y optimizaciones de capa cruzada cuyo objetivo es incrementar el tiempo de vida de las redes WBAN mediante el ahorro de energía. Luego, se discute los aspectos relevantes y deficiencias de las técnicas de capa cruzada energéticamente eficientes. Además, se introducen aspectos de investigación abiertos y retos en el diseño de capa cruzada para WBAN. En esta revisión proponemos una taxonomía de las aproximaciones de capa cruzada, de modo que las técnicas revisadas se ajustan en categorías de acuerdo a los protocolos involucrados en el diseño. Una clasificación novedosa se incluye para hacer claridad en los conceptos teóricos involucrados en cada esquema de capa cruzada y para luego agrupar aproximaciones similares evidenciando las diferencias con otras técnicas entre sí. Nuestras conclusiones consideran los aspectos de movilidad y modelamiento del canal en escenarios de WBAN como las direcciones para futura investigación en WBAN y en aplicaciones de telemedicina.ABSTRACT: Cross-layer design is considered a powerful alternative to solve the complexities of wireless communication in wireless body area networks (WBAN), where the classical communication model has been shown to be inaccurate. Regarding the energy consumption problem, we have prepared a current survey of the most relevant scientific publications on energy-efficient cross-layer design for WBAN. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of the advances in cross-layer approaches, protocols and optimizations aimed at increasing the network lifetime by saving energy in WBANs. Subsequently, we discuss the relevant aspects and shortcomings of these energy-efficient cross-layer techniques and point out the open research issues and challenges in WBAN cross-layer design. In this survey, we propose a taxonomy for cross-layer approaches to fit them into categories based on the protocols involved in the cross-layer scheme. A novel classification is included to clarify the theoretical concepts behind each cross-layer scheme; and to group similar approaches by establishing their differences from the other strategies reviewed. Our conclusion considers the aspects of mobility and channel modeling in WBAN scenarios as the directions of future cross-layer research for WBAN and telemedicine applications

Game-Theoretic Relay Selection and Power Control in Fading Wireless Body Area Networks

The trend towards personalized ubiquitous computing has led to the advent of a new generation of wireless technologies, namely wireless body area networks (WBANs), which connect the wearable devices into the Internet-of-Things. This thesis considers the problems of relay selection and power control in fading WBANs with energy-efficiency and security considerations. The main body of the thesis is formed by two papers. Ideas from probability theory are used, in the first paper, to construct a performance measure signifying the energy efficiency of transmission, while in the second paper, information-theoretic principles are leveraged to characterize the transmission secrecy at the wireless physical layer (PHY). The hypothesis is that exploiting spatial diversity through multi-hop relaying is an effective strategy in a WBAN to combat fading and enhance communication throughput. In order to analytically explore the problems of optimal relay selection and power control, proper tools from game theory are employed. In particular, non-cooperative game-theoretic frameworks are developed to model and analyze the strategic interactions among sensor nodes in a WBAN when seeking to optimize their transmissions in the uplink. Quality-of-service requirements are also incorporated into the game frameworks, in terms of upper bounds on the end-to-end delay and jitter incurred by multi-hop transmission, by borrowing relevant tools from queuing theory. The proposed game frameworks are proved to admit Nash equilibria, and distributed algorithms are devised that converge to stable Nash solutions. The frameworks are then evaluated using numerical simulations in conditions approximating actual deployment of WBANs. Performance behavior trade-offs are investigated in an IEEE 802.15.6-based ultra wideband WBAN considering various scenarios. The frameworks show remarkable promise in improving the energy efficiency and PHY secrecy of transmission, at the expense of an admissible increase in the end-to-end latency