On PHY and MAC Performance in Body Sensor Networks
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Research Article On PHY and MAC Performance in Body Sensor Networks Sana Ullah,1 Henry Higgins,2 S. M. Riazul Islam,1 Pervez Khan,1 and Kyung Sup Kwak1 1 Graduate
School of Telecommunication Engineering, Inha University, 253 Yonghyun-Dong, Nam-Gu 402-751, Incheon, South Korea Division, Zarlink Semiconductor Company, Castlegate Business Park, Portskewett, Caldicot NP26 5YW, UK
2 Microelectronics
Correspondence should be addressed to Sana Ullah, [email protected] Received 26 January 2009; Accepted 14 May 2009 Recommended by Naveen Chilamkurti This paper presents an empirical investigation on the performance of body implant communication using radio frequency (RF) technology. In body implant communication, the electrical properties of the body influence the signal propagation in several ways. We use a Perspex body model (30 cm diameter, 80 cm height and 0.5 cm thickness) filled with a liquid that mimics the electrical properties of the basic body tissues. This model is used to observe the effects of body tissue on the RF communication. We observe best performance at 3cm depth inside the liquid. We further present a simulation study of several low-power MAC protocols for an on-body sensor network and discuss the derived results. Also, the traditional preamble-based TMDA protocol is extended towards a beacon-based TDMA protocol in order to avoid preamble collision and to ensure low-power communication. Copyright © 2009 Sana Ullah et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Introduction Body Sensor Networks (BSNs) are becoming increasingly important for sporting activities, unobtrusive healthcare systems, and members of military services. They are considered as a key technology to prevent the occurrence of myocardial infarction, monitor series of events or any other life critical condition, and are used for interactive gaming and entertainment applications. Traditionally, many body functions were rarely monitored and separated by a considerable period of time. Holter monitors were used to collect cardio rhythm disturbances for offline processing but they were not used to provide real-time feedback [1]. For instance, transient abnormalities are sometimes hard to capture, for example, many cardiac diseases are episodic such as transient surges in blood pressure, paroxysmal arrhythmias or induced episodes of myocardial ischemia and their timing cannot be predicted [2]. BSNs allow continuous monitoring of patients under natural physiological states without constraining their normal activities. They are used to develop a smart and affordable health care system and can be a part of diagnostic procedure, maintenance of chronic condition, and supervised recovery from a surgical procedure. In-body sensor networks are used to restore control over paralyzed limbs, enable bladder and bowel muscle control, and maintain regular heart rhythm as well as man
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