Multi-hop WBAN configuration approach for wearable machine-to-machine systems

作者：Kim Tae Yoon; Kim Eui Jik^*

来源：Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2016, 75(20): 12859-12878.

DOI：10.1007/s11042-015-2832-x

• Multi-hop
• Network configuration
• Sensor network
• Wearable machine-to-machine
• Wireless body area network

Machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies for wearable healthcare services are now being considered as a cutting-edge solution to provide care for the aging population that is rapidly growing. M2M systems consist of sensors, actuators, and communications modules that can achieve various purposes. With respect to communications, wireless body area networks (WBANs) are highly suitable communication technologies for wearable M2M. Most existing research for WBANs have mainly focused on a one-hop star network configuration due to their ease of implementation. However, in an environment with a real wearable M2M system, a multi-hop network can be a more suitable solution for communication due to its various advantages, including a low heat generation, low path loss, low inter-network interference, etc., despite the high difficulty in management. Therefore, we propose a multi-hop WBAN configuration approach (MWCA) for wearable M2M systems. MWCA improves network throughput by exploiting multi-channel communications, and it achieves high energy efficiency by reducing the transmission power of each M2M device. We also investigate the performance of MWCA by using an analytical model, which is validated through the use of experimental simulations.

• 出版日期2016-10