Workshop on Computing, Networking and Communications
Reliable Body Area Networks Using Relays:
Restricted Tree Topology
Hind Chebbo, Saied Abedi
Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe (FLE)
Hayes, UK
Hind.Chebbo@uk.Fujitsu.com
Abstract—This paper focuses on mechanisms that support the
reliable transfer of data for medical applications in wireless Body
Area Networks (BANs), in particular for the monitoring by
sensors of vital life signs. Recent studies on path-loss models for
BANs show that for some scenarios a Star Topology (ST) with a
direct, single link, between sensor and coordinator is insufficient.
It is thus beneficial to extend the ST to a Tree Topology with a
restricted number of hops using relays. In this paper we provide
an overview of relevant findings before presenting our Restricted
Tree Topology (RTT) design. We then present an experiment
that is set up to study the performance of RTT in terms of
availability of connectivity, based on Received signal strength at
2.4 GHz using wearable channel sounders with various people
sleeping---sleeping has been found to be one of the most difficult
scenarios, in terms of reliability, for BAN. Our simulation results
show that for certain sleeping positions, RTT improves
connectivity by approximately 12% for a receiver sensitivity of -
95 dBm. In addition we have shown that without RTT it is not
possible to meet the reliability requirement as set out by the
IEEE 802.15.6 Task Group for its draft standard
Keywords: Body Area Networks, Relay, Multihop, Tree
Topology, Medical, Wireless
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have emerged
as a key enabling technology for provisioning of health care
services. In particular, short range WSNs such as Body Area
Networks (BANs) offer the potential for various medical
applications to significantly improve patient care and reduce
the cost associated with health care. BANs are equipped with
in-body (i.e. implant) or on-body sensors that monitor vital life
signs and report them to a central unit or gateway, known as a
BAN coordinator, for processing the data or further
transmission on to outside networks. Recently, researchers
from academia and industry have focused their interest on the
development of the IEEE 802.15.6 [1] specification as the
future standard for BANs for both medical and non-medical
applications, with priority given to medical application data.
One of the main technical issues in BAN is the reliable and
efficient transfer of vital life signs using wireless
communication near the human body, which is a very lossy
medium [2–10]. A key technical requirement is to meet the
reliability requirement as set out by the IEEE 802.15.6 draft
standard, which states that “the packet error rate (PER) shall be
less than or equal to 10% for a 256 octet payload with a link
success probability of 95% over all channel conditions” [11].
Most research adopts a Star Topology (ST) as the default
National ICT Australia is funded by the Australian Government as
represented by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the
Digital Economy and the Australian Research Council through the ICT Centre
of Excellence program.
Tharaka Lamahewa, David Smith, Dino Miniutti and Leif Hanlen also
hold adjunct appointments with the Australian National University (ANU)
978-1-4673-0009-4/12/$26.00 ©2012 IEEE
Tharaka A. Lamahewa, David B. Smith, Dino Miniutti
and Leif Hanlen
National ICT Australia (NICTA)
Canberra, Australia
David.Smith@nicta.com.au
topology for BANs for simplicity of the communication
protocols and to reduce the power consumption associated with
multi-hop or Tree Topologies. Increasing transmission power
to overcome the body’s lossy medium cannot be seen as an
option as it may lead to faster battery depletion. Even if we
assume an unlimited battery life, increasing transmission power
would result in tissue overheating from too much power
propagated on or in the human body. As indicated in [2], the
combined effect of high propagation loss, the limited energy
source, and the issue of tissue overheating, justify the
deployment of more than one transmission hop for BANs.
The work presented here focuses on the needs of the
emerging IEEE 802.15.6 standard and proposes a Restricted
Tree Topology (RTT) that supports a two hop network using
relays between end nodes and a coordinator. The RTT extends
a ST only when required to in order to overcome problems
described above and to provide increased reliability. We set up
an experiment to study the performance of RTT in terms of
availability of connectivity, based on Received Signal Strength
Indicator (RSSI) measured at 2360 MHz, a candidate
frequency for BAN, using wearable channel sounders. Sleeping
has been identified as one of the most difficult scenarios to
meet the reliability requirements of BAN since people can lie
still for hours at a time while asleep, possibly in a position
where individual links experience extreme attenuation [17].
The experiment focuses on common sleeping positions of a
patient in a hospital room environment in which 10 different
sleeping positions are considered (see Fig. 5). Two scenarios of
the experiment are considered depending on the location of the
BAN coordinator. Our results show that for certain sleeping
positions causing loss of direct connectivity between the
coordinator and end nodes, RTT improves the connectivity by
about 12% over all end nodes, for a receiver sensitivity of -
95dBm. We also find that with only one relay we can observe
an outage of 1.16% and 2% for the two scenarios with different
locations of the BAN coordinator on the body, suggesting the
need for the introduction of more than one relay in the two-hop
network topology to improve connectivity and reliability of the
BAN.
In what follows, we assume a beacon enabled network in
which the Media Access Control (MAC) layer has a super-
frame structure that is divided into a contention period, a
contention-free period, and an optional idle period. The paper
is organized as follows: In Section 2 we present our motivation
behind our RTT design and discuss the path-loss models for
the human body. In Section 3 we describe our RTT design and
82
related protocols. We also explain the modified MAC frame
design with focus on features related to RTT. In Section 4 we
provide details of the experiment set up and show the results of
the performance analysis related to our RTT design, before
concluding in Section 5.
II. MOTIVATION
This section elaborates on the main drivers for establishing
RTT to extend and support a ST for increased reliability of
data transfer in medical applications.
A. Path Loss Model
Different Channel Models (CMs) have been suggested for
BANs. These CMs are derived from a combination of
analytical and measurement campaigns. One of these CMs,
suggested in the IEEE 802.15.6 standardization group for on-
body applications, is called CM3 [12]. CM3 is defined for on-
body to on-body communication with Line-Of-Sight (LOS)
and Non-Line-Of-Sight (NLOS) scenarios. In [2], [13] and [14]
different shadowing and path loss models have been presented.
In [13] it has been concluded from measurements that the fast
fading follows a Rice distribution with a high K-factor when
the human subject is stationary, which means there is a strong
dominance of main path from the energy contribution
perspective. However, it is also shown in [13] that under
walking scenarios, the K-factor almost disappear. This means
that the fading distribution is a Rayleigh fading model which
makes transmissions even more challenging.
B. Star Topology vs Tree Topology
Star Topologies have their own shortcomings, as the
communications may degrade significantly when end sensor
nodes are located far away from a coordinator as discussed in
[2, 13, and 14]. The Tree Topology is an alternative
configuration that is commonly used in sensor networks to
overcome the shortcomings of STs, especially for long distance
communications between end sensor nodes and a coordinator
and also to overcome the impact of shadowing. For on-body
applications, it is clear that the distance between end sensor
nodes and a coordinator plays an important role in the
network’s performance. When distance between nodes
increases, the single-hop path-loss effects start to impact
performance dramatically. The Tree Topology and the resulting
higher forwarding overheads make the nodes near the
coordinator perform even worse from an energy efficiency
perspective. Further away from the coordinator the single-hop
situation does not change. Although relay nodes can
significantly improve the situation under multihop
transmissions, it is not always feasible to employ extra relay
nodes as putting more nodes on the body reduces patient
comfort. More importantly, the introduction of extra relay
nodes may have a detrimental implication on security in BANs.
Hence, the network lifetime should be improved without the
addition of such explicit, permanent relay nodes. Other
research findings [12–14] indicate that if we classify Medical
BAN (MBAN) sensor nodes into three groups of head, chest
and leg nodes, and if we assume that the coordinator is located
on the torso, the leg and head nodes will have more difficulties
in reaching the coordinator as they are located furthest away.
83
Recently, it has been shown that without relays, some of the
leg or head sensor nodes were not reachable by the coordinator,
whereas by introducing relays, the probability of missing a
beacon may be reduced to less than 0.1 [13, 14]. The head and
leg nodes, therefore, may exploit multi-hop paths while chest
nodes may reach the coordinator directly. The chest sensor
nodes may be dynamically employed as opportunistic relay
nodes for leg and head sensor nodes as required. The difference
between such limited opportunistic relaying and continuous
relaying is that, firstly, the relay nodes need not be used as such
for longer than they are required, and secondly, that the number
of hops is limited to two and as result only a few end nodes are
allowed to use a relay node. The relay node, therefore, will
have much less traffic and a much better energy budget.
We believe that a Restricted Tree Topology (RTT)
employing dynamic, opportunistic relaying as described here
will help manage energy budgets and increase reliability in
MBANs. When end sensor nodes, such as leg or head sensors,
which are far from a coordinator, do not experience bad
channel conditions, relaying is halted and the MBAN may
resort back to a ST. This helps to alleviate the need for relay
nodes close to the coordinator, for example chest sensor nodes,
to relay continuously, resulting in them experiencing less
power consumption than if they were deployed as explicit,
permanent relay nodes.
III. RESTRICTED TREE TOPOLOGY
Similar to the emerging standard IEEE802.15.6, we assume
that the default topology for BANs is a ST. However, since
link communication may deteriorate due to shadowing effects
caused by body movements, and in order to provide the
reliability required for medical applications, a ST may be
extended in such circumstances as to provide a RTT with
additional relays for two hop BANs. The triggering criteria for
RTT could be the number of missed acknowledgement
messages (ACKs) at the sensor node for downlink
communication or expected uplink data from the latter that are
missed by a coordinator for a predefined period. A sensor node
and a coordinator use RTT to exchange frames through another
sensor node that is connected and capable of direct
communication with both of them, as illustrated in Fig.1,
turning the sensor node and intermediate nodes into the relayed
and relaying nodes, respectively, and the coordinator into the
target coordinator of the relayed node.
Figure 1 Restricted Tree Topology-Two hop extended star
network topology
Either the relayed node or the target coordinator may
initiate a RTT at times determined fit by the initiator,
regardless of whether they have been never, or are no longer, in
direct communication with each other. The relaying node may
also exchange its own frames with the coordinator directly just
as in a one-hop star network.
A. Medium Access Control(MAC) Design and Frame Format
in RTT
The MAC design is based on the emerging IEEE 802.15.6
standard and IEEE802.15.4 standard. In what follows, we
assume a beacon-enabled network in which the Media Access
Control (MAC) layer has a super-frame structure that is
divided into a contention period, a contention-free period, and
an optional idle period. CSMA is used for the contention
access period and TDMA for the contention free access with
priority given to the medical applications. The MAC frame
format is designed for ST, being the default topology for the
BAN, to reduce the MAC overhead and power consumption in
sensor nodes. It includes features to indicate relaying capability
and traffic.
Fig 2 shows the modifications to the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC
frame format with emphasis here on features related to RTT.
The MAC frame consists of a Frame Control with a relaying
field and a reduced addressing field compared to existing
standards such as IEEE802.15.4, a frame payload, and frame
checksum. The Frame Control (FC) identifies different types of
frames, indicates the acknowledgment policy, sets the security
policy and dictates the format of the frame payload. Frame
types consists of: 1) management such as connection request
/assignment and security related frames ; 2)control such as
acknowledgment, local broadcast (LB) to provide both
synchronization and link quality indicator; and 3) user data
with different priorities. The relaying field in FC is a Flag (R)
which is used to distinguish between direct and indirect
communication in RTT. In the ST, R is set to 0 in all data
transfer, whereas in RTT, R is set 1 to indicate the requirement
for transmission through a relaying node and R is set to 0 to
indicate that the transmission is direct and does not require
forwarding by a relaying node. The Addressing field is
composed of Receiver, Sender and Body Area Network
Identifiers, RID, SID, and BAN ID, respectively. Under a ST,
RID and SID are the identifiers of the coordinator and a sensor
node, respectively, for the uplink. The full IEEE MAC
addresses are in the payload in some of management frames
such as Connection Request and Assignment frames.
Under RTT, for the uplink from a node to the target
coordinator, the RID and SID of the encapsulating MAC frame
(the outer frame shown in Fig. 2 become the identifiers of the
target coordinator and the relaying node in the second hop, i.e.
the forwarded transmission from the relaying node to the
coordinator, and the identifiers of the relaying node and the
relayed node in the first hop, i.e. transmission from the relayed
node to the relaying node. However, in the encapsulated MAC
frame (the inner frame shown in Fig. 2, the RID and SID
become the identifiers of the target coordinator and the relayed
node, respectively, for both hops. The MAC payload in ST is
not encapsulated whereas in RTT it encapsulates the MAC
frame sent from/to the relayed node/target coordinator as if
they are in ST. It is important to note that the PHY assumes a
fixed length of MAC header. For RTT, three address fields are
needed, and hence realized through encapsulation.
84
B. Exchange of Frames in RTT
The relayed node and the target coordinator may exchange
unicast management or data, but not control, type frames
through the relaying node by frame encapsulation as illustrated
in Fig.3 and described in the remainder of this subsection. It is
assumed that the relayed node, the relaying node, and the target
coordinator will not apply frame encapsulation to control type
frames, such as Acknowledgement (ACK) frames.
Octets: 1 1 1 Variable 2
Frame
Control
RID SID Net ID
MAC Frame Payload
(Encapsulated MAC Frame)
FCS
MHR MAC Payload MFR
…. 1 bit ….
….
Relay Flag
Î R=1
…..
Octets
:
Frame
RID Î
1 1 1 Variable 2
SID Î Node
Control
(R = 1)
Coordinator
MHR
Net ID Payload
MAC Payload
FCS
MFR
Figure 2 Modification of IEEE802.15.4 MAC frame
This means that the acknowledgement is done on a hop-by-
hop basis at the MAC layer to minimize the complexity of the
end-to-end acknowledgement in low power consumption
sensor nodes. The relayed node and the target coordinator will
follow the connection procedure for a one-hop star network in
exchanging encapsulated frames through the relaying node, as
if they were in direct communication, applying an appropriate
security level for both transmission and reception of the
encapsulated frames. The relaying node and the target
coordinator will follow the connection procedure for a one-hop
star network in exchanging frames, encapsulated or not, as if
the relaying node were a non-relaying node, applying an
appropriate security level for both transmission and reception
of the frames. The relayed node and the relaying node will
follow the connection procedure for a one-hop star network in
exchanging frames, encapsulated or not, as if the relaying node
were a coordinator, applying an appropriate security level for
both transmission and reception of the frames, with the
followings exception: To exchange frames for a two-hop
extension, they will not be connected with each other in the
way a node and a coordinator would be in a one-hop star
network, i.e., they will not exchange with each other
Connection Request and Connection Assignment frames not
encapsulating another frame. The target coordinator informs
the relaying node and the relayed node of their two hop
scheduled allocations by sending two encapsulated Connection
Assignment frames.
C. Selection of a Rrelaying Node for RTT
Either the relayed node or the target coordinator may select
their relaying node through prearrangement. The relayed node
may also select node B as its relaying node if it recently
received acknowledgment frames sent from node B to the
target coordinator. The relayed node may receive such
acknowledgment frames with appropriate exceptions given to
the values of the Recipient ID and Sender ID fields of the
MAC header of the frames. The relayed node may alternatively
select node C as its relaying node if it recently received control
type frame (CT) locally broadcast by node C willing to support
relaying. The CT frame include a Relay Link Indicator field
(RLI) to indicate the quality of the link between relaying node
and the target coordinator to assist the relayed node to select
the best relaying node. The Relay Link Quality field is set as
follows: a) Transmission of management or data type frames from relayed
node through relaying node to target coordinator
x A bit of the field is set to one if in the superframe
designated by the bit, at least one frame was transmitted or
received by the sender of the current frame, and more than
half of the frames transmitted between this sender and its
coordinator were received, or is set to zero otherwise.
x The least-significant bit of the field designates the last
superframe, and each successively more significant bit
designates a successively earlier superframe.
It is assumed that the relayed node will not select more than
one node as its relaying node at any given time. In selecting the
relaying node, the relayed node should take into account the
quality of the links between itself and the relaying node and (b) Transmission of management or data type frames from target
between the relaying node and the target coordinator. coordinator through relaying node to relayed node (except
Connection Assignment frames)
D. Using Local Broadcast- Control Type Frame (CT)- in
RTT
To facilitate a two-hop extension for relayed nodes, a
relaying node may obtain a scheduled uplink allocation to be
used as described in the remainder of this sub section. In the
scheduled uplink allocation, the relaying node will broadcast
CT frames formatted as if it were sending them as a
coordinator. Via such a CT frame, the relaying node may
provide either no or an immediate (shared) polled allocation
within the scheduled uplink allocation, facilitating the
selection of a relaying node and the synchronization with the
target coordinator by potential relayed nodes, as well as
offering the latter a frame transmission opportunity for frame
relay to the target coordinator. In the scheduled uplink
(c) Transmission of Connection Assignment frames from target
allocation, the relaying node may also send to the coordinator coordinator to relaying node and relayed node
or relayed nodes frames it has received from relayed nodes or
the coordinator for further transmission to the coordinator or Figure 3 Management or data type frame exchanges on a
relayed nodes, respectively. A relayed node that does not two-hop extension
directly receive beacons from the target coordinator should To obtain scheduled allocations for a two-hop extension, the
indirectly synchronize with the coordinator through reception relayed node will send an encapsulated Connection Request
of CT frames sent by a relaying node in the same body area frame through the relaying node to the target coordinator, as in
network (BAN). A relayed node may send at most a frame to illustrated in Fig.3a. In this frame, the relayed node will
the relaying node in a shared polled allocation, initially with include uplink, downlink, or/and bilink requests specifying
contention probability inversely proportional to the retries scheduled allocation(s) applicable between the relayed node
count. A relayed node should send only management type or and the target coordinator in a one-hop star network. To grant
control type frames in shared polled allocations. To transmit scheduled allocations for a two-hop extension, requested by
data type frames, it should obtain scheduled allocations for its the relayed node or initiated by itself, the target coordinator
two-hop extension. will send an encapsulated Connection Assignment frame to
the relaying node, which will subsequently send the frame
E. Starting RTT upon some modifications to the relayed node as illustrated in
Either the relayed node or the target coordinator may initiate Fig 3c.. In this frame, the target coordinator will include
scheduled allocations for a two-hop extension. appropriate Uplink, Downlink, or/and Bilink Assignment
specifying the two-hop scheduled allocations (Fig 3c). The
coordinator will send another connection assignment to the
relaying node specifying the two hop scheduled allocations.
The target coordinator will take into account the overall

85
latency that results from a two-hop extension in specifying the
two-hop scheduled allocation intervals.
F. Ending RTT
The relayed node or the target coordinator may initiate to
end their two-hop scheduled allocations at any time the
initiator determines fit. To request for ending the two-hop
scheduled allocations, the relayed node will send a Connection
Request frame directly to the target as in a one-hop star
network, in a scheduled allocation applicable between itself
and the relaying node. In response to the ending request or
when initiated by the target coordinator, the target coordinator
will send an encapsulated connection assignment frame to the
relaying node in a scheduled allocation applicable between
itself and the relaying node, and will send another
encapsulated Connection Assignment frame directly to the
relayed node in a scheduled allocation currently or previously
applicable between the relaying node and the relayed node.
The relaying node may end the two-hop scheduled
allocations applicable between a relayed node and the target
coordinator by setting to zero the Relay field of the MAC
header of a required Ack frame in response to a frame
received from the relayed node or the target coordinator ,
when it determines that its relay between them is no longer
feasible. The relaying node may, and should keep the two-hop
scheduled allocations, if any, applicable between another
relayed node and the target coordinator, so long as its relay
between them is feasible and desirable.
G. Analysis of the Additional Energy Consumption by RTT
Scheme
In performing current analysis, we have assumed that relay
only wakes when sensor wakes, i.e. only when necessary.
Hence, the relay will only wake up when the sensor is due to
receive some information from the coordinator or from the
sensor. Also assumes that in ST a single sensor directly
communicates with a coordinator. The RTT scheme has relay
nodes that relay messages from the sensor to the coordinator.
The sensor and relay nodes are built from the same baseline
device, hence use the same amount of power as each other
while transmitting (்ܲ ) or receiving (ܲோ ). Another assumption
is that the sensor, relay and coordinator are all built from the
same baseline device; hence use the same amount of time as
each other to transmit the same amount of data. The
coordinator is also assumed to be a mobile phone, or similar
device that has a larger battery or may be regularly charged.
Hence we can ignore the amount of additional energy that is
used by the coordinator. Therefore the additional relay energy
consumption can be expressed as:
‫ܧ‬ா௫௧௥௔ሺோ்்ሻ ൌ σܲோ (‫ݐ‬௅ ൅ ‫ݐ‬ு ) ൅ σܲோ (‫ݐ‬ௌ ൅ ‫ݐ‬௅ ) ൅ σ்ܲ ‫ݐ‬ௌ +
σ்ܲ ‫ݐ‬ு (1)
ܶ is the duration of the time period of interest (total time),
்ܲ is the circuit power consumption of the sensor/relay in
transmit mode. ܲோ is the circuit power consumption of the
sensor/relay in receive mode, ‫ݐ‬ௌ is the amount of time it takes
86
to transmit data originating from the sensor, ‫ݐ‬ு is the amount
of time that it takes to transmit data originating from the
coordinator, and ‫ݐ‬௅ is the time that a node "wakes up" to listen
before it expects to receive some data.
The first term represents the energy used for listening
to packets sent by the coordinator and the second term
represents the energy used listening for packets sent by the
sensor. The third term represents the energy required to relay
sensor packets to the coordinator and the fourth term is the
energy required to relay coordinator packets to the sensor.
Whenever the sensor does not successfully receive a packet it
is expecting from the coordinator, it must remain awake an
additional amount of time for the relay to send that packet to
it. We assume that the relay receives the packet successfully
and begins to transmit it immediately (subject to a slight
processing delay (‫ݐ‬௉ ) at the relay). Therefore the additional
sensor energy consumption can be expressed as
‫ܧ‬ா௫௧௥௔ሺௌ௘௡௦௢௥ሻ ൌ ሺͳ െ ߩሻσܲோ ሺ‫ݐ‬ு ൅ ‫ݐ‬௉ ) (2)
࣋ is the probability of successful communication between
sensor node and coordinator, and ‫ݐ‬௉ is the amount of time that
the relay takes between receiving a packet from the
coordinator and starting to retransmit that packet to the sensor.
IV. EXPERIMENT SETUP AND RESULTS
We consider a Tree Topology similar to [2] with two levels.
First we describe the experiment setup used to show the
EHQH¿WVRIDWZROHYHO7UHH7RSRORJ\LQD%$1HQYLURQPHQW
and then provide performance results obtained from this
experiment. This experiment simulates a patient sleeping on a
bed with sensors attached to the patient’s body. We analyze
the connectivity between the coordinator node and the
destination nodes in the presence (dual-hop) and absence
(single-hop) of a relaying node.
A. Experiment Setup
Channel measurements were made using wearable channel
sounders. A channel sounder is shown in Fig. 4(a), further
GHWDLOVDQGVSHFL¿FDWLRQVRIWKLVFKDQQHOVRXQGHUFDQEHIRXQG
in [15]. Channel measurements were made at 2360 MHz (near
the ISM band, avoiding ISM interference); the receiving node
recorded the RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) value
for the packet and derived the channel gain for each Tx/Rx
link, enabling the measurement of channel gains from 0 to
í G% 8VLQJ RXU FKDQQHO JDLQ PHDVXUHPHQWV ZH VHW D
QRPLQDO UHFHLYH VHQVLWLYLW\ RI í G%P DQG GHYLFH WUDQVPLW
power of -10 dBm 1 for analysis. We employed 7 channel
sounders (sensor nodes), numbered 1 through 7, attached to a
test subject as shown in Fig. 4(b). Each channel sounder was
FRQ¿JXUHG WR WUDQVPLW LQ D URXQGURELQ VW\OH WR DYRLG
collisions; each channel sounder transmits 1 packet every 100
1
-10dBm is the recommended transmit power level for medical devices [16].
PV7KHURXQGURELQFRQ¿JXUDWLRQRIWUDQVPLVVLRQ IURPHDFK RSSI values corresponding to 10 sleeping positions shown in
channel sounder allows the measuring of each Tx/Rx link’s Fig. 5 and the horizontal line corresponds to the receiver
RSSI in the system. However, in this paper, we only analyze VHQVLWLYLW\ ZKLFK LV íG%P )URP WKLV H[SHULPHQW ZH FDQ
the connectivity in the down-link, i.e., from coordinator node observe that when the person is sleeping in right yearner (3),
to destination nodes. We consider two following scenarios: soldier (7) and free-faller (10) positions, the RSSI of the
(1). Sensor node 1 acts as the coordinator and sensor node 2 direct-link (1Î6) drops below the receiver sensitivity
acts as a relaying node while the other 5 nodes act as (channel outage), leading to dropped packets.
destination nodes.

(a) (b)
Fig. 6. RSSI for links 1Î6, 1Î2 and 2 Î6 when a human test
Fig 4(a) Wearable channel sounder, at 2400 MHz ISM band. US
subject is sleeping in common sleeping positions shown in Fig. 5.
quarter is shown for scale, PCB is approximately 55 mm × 40 mm.
Vertical lines separate the sleeping positions. Approximately 2
(b) Sensor placement on the test subject. Sensors are numbered
minutes of sleeping in each sleeping position.
from 1 to 7. Coordinator node: 1 (or 2), relay node: 2 (or 1) and
destination nodes: 3, 4, 5, and 7.
During the channel outage period of the direct link, we
observe that the other two links’ RSSI stay above the receiver
sensitivity. This suggests that when the direct link is in outage,
the coordinator may be able to maintain connectivity with the
destination sensor node via the relay node. From Fig. 6 it can
be further observed that RSSI for all links stays stable with
small variations for long periods of time, due to little
movement of subjects when sleeping. This observation is
typical for a BAN sleeping channel and shows that links can
stay in outage for long periods, including relay links [17].

TABLE I CONNECTIVITY ANALYSIS

Fig. 5 Common sleeping positions: (1) Right Foetus, (2) Right Log,
(3) Right Yearner, (4) Left Foetus, (5) Left Log, (6) Left Yearner, (7)
Soldier, (8) Soldier Knees-up, (9) Starfish and (10) Free-faller.
(Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3112170.stm, we added
left/right and up/down positions.)

(2). Sensor node 2 acts as the coordinator and sensor node 1

acts as a relaying node while the other 5 nodes act as
destination nodes. In this experiment, we used 5 male and 1
female test subjects aged from 22 to 35 years. The experiment
included ten common sleeping positions (see Fig. 5) with each
test subject wearing different light clothing, and sleeping 2
minutes in each position (subjects maintained minimal
movements in each position). The experiment was carried out For agglomerate recorded RSSI (six human test subjects, 5
in a closed-room (dimension 295 cm (W) × 500 cm (L) × 270 destination nodes, 10 sleeping positions, 2 minutes in each
cm (H)) environment in NICTA Canberra Research Lab. The sleeping position), Table 1 summarizes the mean availability
ÀRRU DQG WKH ZDOOV LQVLGH WKH URRP DUH DOO VPRRWK KDUG of (i) direct link (ii) dual-hop link and (iii) no-link, as a
surfaces and the bed had a metal frame with dimensions 95 cm SHUFHQWDJHRIWLPHIRUUHFHLYHUVHQVLWLYLW\YDOXHV^í
(W) × 195 cm (L) × 45 cm (H). 95 dBm}. For both experiment scenarios, it can be observed
B. Results and Analysis WKDWDWíG%PUHFHLYHUVHQVLWLYLW\RQO\RIWKHWLPHWKH
coordinator can use the direct link to communicate with 5
In Fig. 6 we plot the RSSI values for links 1Î6 (coordinator
destination nodes, and on average about 12% of the time it can
Îdestination node), 1Î2 (coordinatorÎrelay node) and 2
Î6 (relay nodeÎdestination node) when a human test subject
is sleeping in a bed. The vertical lines in Fig. 6 separate the

87
use the dual-hop links 2 to communicate with destination
nodes. However, we can observe that 1.16% of the time for
WKH¿UVWH[SHULPHQWVFHQDULRDQGRIWKHWLPHIRUWKHVHFRQG
experiment scenario, the coordinator is unable to maintain
connectivity between destination nodes (no-link). It should be
noted that without introducing relays, in this particular
scenario, we are unable to meet a key technical reliability
requirement as set out by the IEEE 802.15.6 draft standard,
which states that “the packet error rate (PER) shall be less than
or equal to 10% for a 256 octet payload with a link success
probability of 95% over all channel conditions” [11].
To investigate further the no-link situation, in Fig. 7 we plot
nodes for a selected test subject. Note that solid (red) vertical
lines separate connectivity between the coordinator and
individual destination nodes and broken (cyan) vertical lines
separate diơerent sleeping positions depicted in Fig. 5. The
connectivity between the coordinator and destination with the
dual-hop channel, RSSI = min{RSSI1Î2, RSSI2Îdestination} is
plotted. It can be observed that for some destinations neither
the direct link nor a particular dual-hop link is available
throughout some of the sleeping positions. This experiment
also reveals that one particular relay node is not suƥcient to
maintain connectivity between the coordinator and the sensor
nodes, rather another dual-hop link may be required, in
particular for the BAN sleeping channels considered here.
Fig. 7 Connectivity between coordinator and destination nodes
Head(3), Right Wrist(4), Left Wrist(5), Right Ankle(6) and Left
802.15.6 standard can be achieved, particularly under difficult
fading channel conditions. In future work we plan to provide
more simulation results with more than a relay node in the
BAN to demonstrate the full benefits of RTT to overcome the
small outages observed in the current experiment.
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$QNOH5HFHLYHUVHQVLWLYLW\íG%P)RUWKHGXDOKRSFKDQQHO
RSSI = min{RSSI1-2, RSSI2-destination} is plotted.
V. CONCLUDING REMARKS
In this paper, we have briefly discussed the path-loss
models for the human body and described our RTT design and
the related protocols and MAC Frame Format. An experiment
was set up to demonstrate the performance of RTT in terms of
availability of connectivity based on RSSI measurement taken
from channel sounders at 2360 MHz. Our experiment results
prove that by extending the Star Topology to a restricted tree
topology (RTT) with two hops, through the introduction of
relay nodes, the reliability requirement set out by the IEEE
2
Dual-hop link is used only when the direct link’s RSSI drops below the
receiver sensitivity.
88
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