ATLAS: a traffic load aware sensor MAC design for collaborative body area sensor networks

In collaborative body sensor networks, namely wireless body area networks (WBANs), each of the physical sensor applications is used to collaboratively monitor the health status of the human body. The applications of WBANs comprise diverse and dynamic traffic loads such as very low-rate periodic moni...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2011-12, Vol.11 (12), p.11560-11580
Main Authors: Rahman, Md Obaidur, Hong, Choong Seon, Lee, Sungwon, Bang, Young-Cheol
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access control
and delay
Collaboration
collaborative sensors
Communication
Computer engineering
Cooperative Behavior
energy
Energy conservation
IEEE 802.15.4
Load
Motor Vehicles
Power
Protocol
Sensors
superframe
Telemetry - instrumentation
Telemetry - methods
throughput
traffic load
Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN)
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Summary:In collaborative body sensor networks, namely wireless body area networks (WBANs), each of the physical sensor applications is used to collaboratively monitor the health status of the human body. The applications of WBANs comprise diverse and dynamic traffic loads such as very low-rate periodic monitoring (i.e., observation) data and high-rate traffic including event-triggered bursts. Therefore, in designing a medium access control (MAC) protocol for WBANs, energy conservation should be the primary concern during low-traffic periods, whereas a balance between satisfying high-throughput demand and efficient energy usage is necessary during high-traffic times. In this paper, we design a traffic load-aware innovative MAC solution for WBANs, called ATLAS. The design exploits the superframe structure of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, and it adaptively uses the contention access period (CAP), contention free period (CFP) and inactive period (IP) of the superframe based on estimated traffic load, by applying a dynamic "wh" (whenever which is required) approach. Unlike earlier work, the proposed MAC design includes load estimation for network load-status awareness and a multi-hop communication pattern in order to prevent energy loss associated with long range transmission. Finally, ATLAS is evaluated through extensive simulations in ns-2 and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the protocol.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s111211560