SIMPLE: Stable Increased-throughput Multi-hop Protocol for Link Efficiency in Wireless Body Area Networks

In this work, we propose a reliable, power efficient and high throughput routing protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). We use multi-hop topology to achieve minimum energy consumption and longer network lifetime. We propose a cost function to select parent node or forwarder. Proposed cost function selects a parent node which has high residual energy and minimum distance to sink. Residual energy parameter balances the energy consumption among the sensor nodes while distance parameter ensures successful packet delivery to sink. Simulation results show that our proposed protocol maximize the network stability period and nodes stay alive for longer period. Longer stability period contributes high packet delivery to sink which is major interest for continuous patient monitoring.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc

When Both Transmitting and Receiving Energies Matter: An Application of Network Coding in Wireless Body Area Networks

A network coding scheme for practical implementations of wireless body area networks is presented, with the objective of providing reliability under low-energy constraints. We propose a simple network layer protocol for star networks, adapting redundancy based on both transmission and reception energies for data and control packets, as well as channel conditions. Our numerical results show that even for small networks, the amount of energy reduction achievable can range from 29% to 87%, as the receiving energy per control packet increases from equal to much larger than the transmitting energy per data packet. The achievable gains increase as a) more nodes are added to the network, and/or b) the channels seen by different sensor nodes become more asymmetric.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to the NC-Pro Workshop at IFIP Networking Conference 2011, and to appear in the conference proceedings, published by Springer-Verlag, in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) serie

Reliable and Energy Efficient Network Protocols for Wireless Body Area Networks

In a wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) various sensors are attached on clothing, on the body or are even implanted under the skin. The wireless nature of the network and the wide variety of sensors offers numerous new, practical and innovative applications. A motivating example can be found in the world of health monitoring. The sensors of the WBAN measure for example the heartbeat, the body temperature or record a prolonged electrocardiogram. Using a WBAN, the patient experiences a greater physical mobility and is no longer compelled to stay in a hospital. A WBAN imposes the networks some strict and specific requirements. The devices are tiny, leaving only limited space for a battery. It is therefore of uttermost importance to restrict the energy consumption in the network. A possible solution is the development of energy efficient protocols that regulate the communication between the radios. Further, it is also important to consider the reliability of the communication. The data sent contains medical information and one has to make sure that it is correctly received at the personal device. It is not allowed that a critical message gets lost. In addition, a WBAN has to support the heterogeneity of its devices. This thesis focuses on the development of energy efficient and reliable network protocols for WBANs. Considered solutions are the use of multi-hop communication and the improved interaction between the different network layers. Mechanisms to reduce the energy consumption and to grade up the reliability of the communication are presented. In a first step, the physical layer of the communication near the human body is studied and investigated. The probability of a connection between two nodes on the body is modeled and used to investigate which network topologies can be considered as the most energy efficient and reliable. Next, MOFBAN, a lightweight framework for network architecture is presented. Finally, CICADA is presented: a new cross layer protocol for WBANs that both handles channel medium access and routing

Lightweight Encryption Based Security Package for Wireless Body Area Network

As the demand of individual health monitoring rose, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) are becoming highly distinctive within health applications. Nowadays, WBAN is much easier to access then what it used to be. However, due to WBAN’s limitation, properly sophisticated security protocols do not exist. As WBAN devices deal with sensitive data and could be used as a threat to the owner of the data or their family, securing individual devices is highly important. Despite the importance in securing data, existing WBAN security methods are focused on providing light weight security methods. This led to most security methods for WBAN providing partial security protocols, which left many possibilities in compromising the system. This paper proposes full security protocol designed for wireless body area networks consisting of light weight data encryption, authentication, and re-keying methods. Encryption and authentication use a modified version of RSA Encryption called PSRSA, developed to be used within small systems such as WBAN. Authentication is performed by using encryption message authentication code (E-MAC) using PSRSA. Rekeying is performed with a method called tokening method. The experiment result and security analysis showed that the proposed approach is as light as the leading WBAN authentication method, ECC authentication, while preventing more attacks and providing smaller communication size which fulfills the highest NIST Authentication Assurance Level (AAL)

EOCC-TARA for Software Defined WBAN

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

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

QoS in Body Area Networks: A survey

Body Area Networks (BANs) are becoming increasingly popular and have shown great potential in real-time monitoring of the human body. With the promise of being cost-effective and unobtrusive and facilitating continuous monitoring, BANs have attracted a wide range of monitoring applications, including medical and healthcare, sports, and rehabilitation systems. Most of these applications are real time and life critical and require a strict guarantee of Quality of Service (QoS) in terms of timeliness, reliability, and so on. Recently, there has been a number of proposals describing diverse approaches or frameworks to achieve QoS in BANs (i.e., for different layers or tiers and different protocols). This survey put these individual efforts into perspective and presents a more holistic view of the area. In this regard, this article identifies a set of QoS requirements for BAN applications and shows how these requirements are linked in a three-tier BAN system and presents a comprehensive review of the existing proposals against those requirements. In addition, open research issues, challenges, and future research directions in achieving these QoS in BANs are highlighted.</jats:p

A Survey on Modality Characteristics, Performance Evaluation Metrics, and Security for Traditional and Wearable Biometric Systems

Biometric research is directed increasingly towards Wearable Biometric Systems (WBS) for user authentication and identification. However, prior to engaging in WBS research, how their operational dynamics and design considerations differ from those of Traditional Biometric Systems (TBS) must be understood. While the current literature is cognizant of those differences, there is no effective work that summarizes the factors where TBS and WBS differ, namely, their modality characteristics, performance, security and privacy. To bridge the gap, this paper accordingly reviews and compares the key characteristics of modalities, contrasts the metrics used to evaluate system performance, and highlights the divergence in critical vulnerabilities, attacks and defenses for TBS and WBS. It further discusses how these factors affect the design considerations for WBS, the open challenges and future directions of research in these areas. In doing so, the paper provides a big-picture overview of the important avenues of challenges and potential solutions that researchers entering the field should be aware of. Hence, this survey aims to be a starting point for researchers in comprehending the fundamental differences between TBS and WBS before understanding the core challenges associated with WBS and its design