J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
DOI 10.1007/s10916-010-9605-x
ORIGINAL PAPER
Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) Design Techniques
and Performance Evaluation
Jamil Yusuf Khan & Mehmet R. Yuce & Garrick Bulger &
Benjamin Harding
Received: 6 May 2010 / Accepted: 26 September 2010 / Published online: 16 October 2010
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract In recent years interest in the application of
Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) for patient moni-
toring applications has grown significantly. A WBAN can
be used to develop patient monitoring systems which offer
flexibility to medical staff and mobility to patients. Patients
monitoring could involve a range of activities including
data collection from various body sensors for storage and
diagnosis, transmitting data to remote medical databases,
and controlling medical appliances, etc. Also, WBANs
could operate in an interconnected mode to enable remote
patient monitoring using telehealth/e-health applications. A
WBAN can also be used to monitor athletes’ performance
and assist them in training activities. For such applications
it is very important that a WBAN collects and transmits
data reliably, and in a timely manner to a monitoring entity.
In order to address these issues, this paper presents WBAN
design techniques for medical applications. We examine the
WBAN design issues with particular emphasis on the
design of MAC protocols and power consumption profiles
of WBAN. Some simulation results are presented to further
illustrate the performances of various WBAN design
techniques.
Keywords Body Sensor Network . Patient monitoring .
MAC protocol . Zigbee . Battery life . Simulation .
MATLAB . OPNET
J. Y. Khan (*) : M. R. Yuce : G. Bulger : B. Harding
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
The University of Newcastle,
Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
e-mail: Jamil.Khan@newcastle.edu.au
Introduction
In recent years interest in the application of Wireless Body
Area Network (WBAN) for patient monitoring applications
has grown significantly [1–3]. A WBAN based on low cost
wireless sensor network technologies could greatly benefit
patient monitoring systems in hospitals, residential and
work environments. A WBAN system allows easy inter-
networking with other devices and networks thus offering
health care workers easy access to patient’s critical as well
as non-critical data. A WBAN based monitoring system can
also be used to monitor athlete’s performance to assist them
in their training activities. A WBAN could be seen as a
special purpose wireless sensor network with a number of
system specific design requirements. A WBAN is most
likely to incorporate wearable and implantable nodes
operating in two different frequencies. An implantable
node is most likely to operate at 400 MHz using the MICS
(Medical Implantable Communication Service) band
whereas the wearable node could operate in ISM or UWB
(Instrumentation Scientific Medical/Ultra Wide Band)
bands or some other specific bands [4].
In a patient monitoring system, data transmission reliability
and latency is extremely important. The reliability and latency
of a WBAN will largely depend on the design of physical
(PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layers [5]. For an
optimum network efficiency and reliability the MAC layer
needs to be designed to meet specific needs of specialized
WBAN applications.. Considering the importance of the
WBAN applications, an IEEE standard group (IEEE802.15.6
working group) is working on the development of a body
area network architecture [6]. The new standard will define
the PHY and MAC layer management issues which could be
1442
used to develop a low cost, ultra low power and highly
reliable wireless network. Reliability of a medical network
can be defined in terms of its main QoS parameters such as
delay profile, delay jitter and packet loss rate. These QoS
profile parameters could be influenced by the wireless link
quality. Performance and reliability of a WBAN will depend
on the physical and MAC layer procedures as well as on the
network topology used. In this paper we examine the MAC
protocol design issues for a WBAN based patient monitoring
system. Before moving into the discussion of design issues
first we examine the network and MAC protocol design
requirements of a WBAN. Some of the main requirements of
a WBAN are listed below.
& A WBAN should be able to support a range of medical
applications which includes acquiring data samples
from periodic and non-periodic sources, and transmit-
ting information to a service node within a maximum
fixed delay without any loss of critical information [7].
Also, the system should be able to support exchange of
non-medical and control information to remotely con-
trol various appliances.
& A WBAN should be able to operate in a power constrained
environment where power sources such as battery should
operate for a reasonably longer period of time. Power
savings for implantable nodes are more critical than other
nodes. Power savings can be achieved by combining PHY
and MAC layer procedures [8].
& A WBAN should be self-healing, secure and reliable.
& A WBAN should support data rates ranging typically
from 10 kbs to 10 Mbs to host a range of medical
applications including images and video clips.
& A WBAN should support QoS management features to
offer priority services. Particularly when a critical
patient is monitored the system must guarantee the
delivery of critical information to a service node where
patient’s medical data is collected and stored for further
processing. For medical data the main QoS features will
be the transmission delay and the packet loss. Longer
transmission delay and packet loss will reduce the
quality of received information at the receiver. For
example, if some packets are lost or arrived after a
longer delay while monitoring a patient then the
diagnostic tools may not be able use some of the
physiological data appropriately.
& A WBAN may incorporate a narrow transmission band
(400 MHz or 2.4 GHz) together with the UWB
technology to cover different environments. For some
medical applications such as multi-channel EEG and
ECG monitoring it may be necessary to use a UWB
based WBAN to support high data rate.
& A WBAN should operate and co-exists with other
network devices operating in similar frequency bands.
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
Also, a WBAN should be able to operate in a
heterogeneous networking environment, where net-
works of different standards may cooperate with each
other to acquire information from different sensors.
Coexistence is an important issue because in a hospital
environment there could many other wireless systems
including IT (Information Technology) systems which
could interfere with the operation of a WBAN. Use of
heterogeneous networks are becoming very common
where different wireless standards such as Bluetooth,
zigbee, Wi-Fi based systems could exist by sharing the
same radio spectrum.
There are a number of classes of MAC protocols that are
used for different networking applications [9]. MAC
protocols are mainly classified into two categories sched-
uled and random access protocols. The scheduled access
protocols offer deterministic packet delay and packet loss
thus offering higher quality of service (QoS). On the other
hand the random access protocols are dynamic in nature
where transmission resources are allocated to the commu-
nication nodes only when a node has information to
transmit. A random access protocol introduces variable
delay and sometime packet losses. However, the delay and
packet loss ratio depend on the traffic volume and
application scenarios. For a low traffic volume a random
access protocol may offer pseudo deterministic perfor-
mance which will be similar to scheduled access protocols.
A pseudo deterministic performance can be characterized
by bounded transmission delay and packet losses. A
WBAN MAC protocol could have influence on the power
consumption profile of a WBAN sensor node in addition to
the transmission channel conditions i,e. the wireless link.
The paper is organized as follows. Section MAC
protocol for a Wireless Body Area Network reviews classes
of MAC protocols for WBAN applications and compare
their design features. Section Power consumption profile of
a WBAN node reviews the power consumption profile of a
WBAN sensor node for different MAC scenarios.
Section Battery life cycle analysis of a WBAN analyzes
the life cycle of batteries for a WBAN node. Performance
analysis of a patient monitoring system is presented in the
Section Performance analysis of a WBAN based patient
monitoring system. OPNET and MATLAB based simula-
tion models are used herein to obtain simulation results for
performance analysis. Section Conclusions summarizes the
WBAN MAC design issues and concludes the paper.
MAC protocol for a Wireless Body Area Network
A Wireless Body Area Network is a special purpose
wireless sensor network with several specific requirements
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
as mentioned in the previous section. It is a short range
wireless system that can be developed using either a
scheduled or a random medium access control protocol. In
a WBAN, the MAC protocol determines the packet or
information delivery schedule as well as the packet loss
probability. These two QoS factors are also influenced by
the transmission channel characteristics and the total traffic
volume in a network. Figure 1 shows a typical WBAN with
multiple sensor nodes and a single Central Coordinator Unit
(CCU) which collects physiological data and controls data
transmission from all sensor nodes. The CCU transmits all
collected data to remote monitoring stations using a
secondary network. Sensor nodes could be located either
on a body or it could be an implantable device. In order to
transmit information among these nodes and to coordinate
these transmissions, it is necessary to develop a suitable
MAC protocol. The WBAN shown in Fig. 1 is operating in
a star configuration where all the sensor nodes are
connected to the CCU by using a single hop connection.
Sensors on the body will collect different physiological
data where the data sampling time and data sample size will
vary. Table 1 lists the characteristics of main physiological
signals [4]. The table shows that the data rate and thus
sampled-data inter-arrival times of different physiological
signals are quite variable. Generally these signals are
periodic in nature but their data rate could vary based on
the physiological condition of a patient. Some of the signals
ideally appears to be periodic but may turn into a non-
periodic or a random signal based on a patient condition.
For example, if a patient develops an abnormal heart
condition then the heartbeat sensor could generate a non-
periodic or a random signal. A MAC protocol of a WBAN
Fig. 1 A typical Wireless Body Area Network with multiple sensor nodes, a central coordinator unit (CCU) and remote monitoring devices
1443
should be able to efficiently handle these variations. Also, a
body sensor node generally have very limited storage
capacity, hence it will be necessary to transmit data within
a specified time delay to avoid any data loss due to the
buffer overflow. Time delay constraint will also be
determined by the priority of data type. For example, in
case of monitoring a critical patient some of the physio-
logical signals could be more important than others and
hence will require quick channel access.
Another important consideration for the MAC protocol
of a WBAN system is the transmission power budget. A
MAC protocol controls the channel access and packet
transmission mechanisms. For each transmission link the
minimum-required power to delivery packets successfully
is referred as the power budget. A MAC protocol also
transmits control packets to support signaling requirements.
Ratio of number of transmitted control packets to the
number of transmitted information packet varies depending
on the MAC protocol design. Each packet transmission
consumes a certain amount of energy hence, the lifetime of
a WBAN node battery will depend on a number of issues
including the MAC protocol design, transmission channel
condition, applications type, etc. To support reliable
information transmission and longer battery life for WBAN
nodes it is necessary to develop a dynamic MAC protocol
which not only transmits information reliably but at same
time offers high energy efficiency and the scalability
feature.
Three classes of protocols such as scheduled TDMA
(Time Division Multiple Access), polling and random
access protocols are discussed in the next section as a
possible WBAN MAC protocol. Beside these three proto-
1444
Table 1 Physiological data characteristics
Physiological signal Parameter range Maximum
frequency (Hz)
Blood flow 1–300 ml/s 20
ECG signal 0.5–4 mV 250
Respiratory rate 2–50breaths/min 10
Blood pressure 10–400 mm Hg 50
(direct arterial)
Blood pH 6.8–7.8pH units 2 0.25
Nerve potentials 0.01–3 mV 10,000
Body temperature 32–40°C 0.1
cols another class of protocols known as the reservation
protocol is also used in the sensor networking applications
however, that class of protocol is not suitable for WBAN
applications due to higher signaling requirements.
Scheduled TDMA MAC protocol
A scheduled MAC protocol can offer deterministic delay
and no packet loss that may results from absence of any
transmission channel contention. The Time Division Mul-
tiple Access (TDMA) is a scheduled multiple access
technique where transmission of packets are managed in
the form of time frame and slots. A central controller which
is the CCU in case of a WBAN will allocate time slots to
each sensor node for transmission. Slots could be allocated
on a permanent basis to each sensor node to transmit
information from a sensor node to the CCU. When time
slots are allocated by the CCU then packet overhead can be
significantly reduced; hence fewer bits are transmitted thus
minimizing the transmission data rate. A TDMA based
MAC protocol could be suitable for a small WBAN with a
limited number of sensors generating data at a fixed rate
and transmitting fixed size block of data.
A TDMA based WBAN can be made energy efficient
where transmitter circuit of a sensor node is only activated
in a specified slot. In this case a sensor node can move to
the sleep state for the rest time of a TDMA frame and
wakes up in the next time frame. Also, a sensor node does
not need to listen to the transmission channels all the time
hence, energy consumptions of communication circuits will
be minimized. A fixed timer based sleep cycle control
scheme can be used for a TDMA based system. However, a
TDMA based WBAN has two major resource allocation
problems. Main problems are the allocation of different
sensors with different inter-arrival time and dealing with
non-periodic data. In a TDMA based system generally a
time slot will be allocated on a fixed basis to a particular
sensor node and allow that node to transmit in the specified
time slot without any possibility of collisions [4]. As shown
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
Sample interarrival Payload/sample(bits) Required data
time (sec) rate (kbs)
0.025 12 0.48
0.002 12 6.0
0.05 12 0.24
0.01 12 1.2
12 0.048
5E-06 12 2,400
5 12 0.0024
in the Table 1, a typical WBAN needs to cater for variable
data inter-arrival rate of different physiological signals. For
example, pulse rate of humans could vary quite widely
depending on the state of health of a person. Whereas in a
TDMA system time slots are allocated on a fixed basis
designed to handle synchronous information. The TDMA
frame rate should be same as the highest sampling
frequency of all signals to support all physiological signals.
According to Table 1 body temperature data has the lowest
sampling rate of 0.2 Hz whereas the nerve potential signal
needs to be sampled at a rate of 20 kHz. Sampling rate is
inverse of the sample inter-arrival time as shown in the
table. In this case if we need to need to transmit all
physiological signals listed in table 1using a TDMA frame
then the frame must repeat at rate of 20,000 frames/sec.
Resource utilization may not be a major problem for a
WBAN because when sensor nodes are not transmitting
any data, they will not utilize the transmission slot but will
remain in the idle state to save energy. In this situation
some system resources will be underutilized and the cost of
a system may increase. Another main problem of a TDMA
based system is the scalability. The TDMA is a centralized
protocol which requires changes in the central controller to
accommodate any extra sensor node in a WBAN which
could be a main drawback for a patient monitoring system
because the number of sensor nodes will vary depending on
the condition of a patient. For example, should medical
staff wants to add more monitoring devices on a patient
body who is under observation then it will be necessary to
modify the transmission time frame from the main
controller. From a WBAN design point of view a TDMA
based system can be used to implement a fixed small
patient monitoring system.
Polling MAC protocol
Polling based MAC protocols are developed based on
scheduled transmission technique utilizing a master slave
architecture to transmit data from sensors. In a polling
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
network, a central controller schedules all transmissions in
a network thus avoiding any contention probability. Figure 2
(a) shows a typical polling network architecture where all
transmissions are controlled by the CCU. A polling
network is more flexible than a fixed assignment based
TDMA network where traffic sources can easily be
accommodate different inter-arrival rates. As shown in
Fig. 2(a) the CCU will send polling messages to all nodes
which in response to the poll can either transmit a message
or can send a short NACK (Negative ACKnowledgement)
when a node has no data to transmit. An ACK (Acknowl-
edgement) for the immediate past packet transmission could
be included by the controller in the polling message to
improve the data reliability. The polling frequency can be
varied and optimized to support traffic sources of different
information inter-arrival rates. An adaptive polling scheme
can also be used to poll different nodes according to their
data generation rates. Figure 2(b) shows the polling cycle
and the polling sequence. A round robin polling scheme is
used where nodes are polled in a sequential manner. Figure
also shows an additional polling slot is kept at the end of
the poll cycle which is used to support the scalability
feature of the protocol. Sensor nodes can join or depart a
network by simply sending a message to the central
controller. The additional polling slot could use a S-
ALOHA MAC protocol to send a JOIN message. The
result of a JOIN request could be broadcasted by the
controller in the subsequent polling cycle. Number of nodes
in a network will vary the polling cycle time as well as the
packet transmission delay ignoring the propagation delay
which is insignificant in a WBAN. A polling network offers
two main advantages; deterministic and bounded transmis-
sion delay, and the scalable network architecture. When a
Fig. 2 A polling MAC based
transmission sequence
1445
new sensor node needs to be added in a WBAN system, the
new unregistered sensor node will send a JOIN message
when the new poll message appears in the polling cycle. In
a polling network the queuing and the packet transmission
delays are largely determined by traffic volume and the
number of active nodes. Sensor nodes in a polling network
could schedule their sleep time according to the cycle time
broadcasted by the controller by embedding the information
with the polling message. The polling technique could
reduce power consumption of a node.
Random access MAC protocol
Random access protocols are commonly known as the ON
DEMAND access protocol and widely used in wireless
local area and sensor networks designed for short range
communications. This protocol is suitable for distributed
systems with no or minimal control signaling requirements.
Many random access protocols have been proposed for
sensor network applications; among them the CSMA/CA
(Collision Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoid-
ance) protocol is better suited for short range wireless
communication networks [9, 10]. A CSMA/CA protocol
based sensor node access a transmission channel only when
it needs to transmit any information. A node using a
CSMA/CA MAC protocol will check the transmission
channel status only when it has data in its transmission
buffer. If it finds a transmission channel free then the node
initiates a packet transmission using a contention based
procedure. Because of the contention nature of the protocol
a transmitted packet may collide and may require retrans-
mission(s) to successfully transmit the packet. There are a
number of advantages that a random access protocol can
1446 J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457

offer for WBAN applications. Main advantages include transmission delay (Tpacket) whose value depends on the
lower signaling overhead, scalability, distributed control packet size and the transmission data rate. From the above
which allows the network to accommodate traffic sources discussion it is clear that the first three components could
with different inter-arrival rates and data rate. introduce jitter if the incoming traffic volume varies
A CSMA/CA protocol also allows a network to optimize significantly over the time; also if the received signal to
its power and transmission resources locally at each sensor noise ratio (SNR) varies significantly over the time.
node. For example, if a node generates any urgent data in a
non-scheduled manner then a TDMA or a polling based Td ðrandomÞ ¼ Taccess þ Tretry þ Tqueue þ Tpacket ð1Þ
system will have difficulties to transmit those data
immediately. Whereas, as soon as any non-scheduled data
is generated at a node the random access-protocol based
Power consumption profile of a WBAN node
nodes can transmit the data provided that the node has the
necessary priorityThe main disadvantage of a random
Power consumption of a sensor node is an important design
access protocol is that it could introduce a variable and
criteria; particularly for an implanted nodes. Design of the
longer delay if the traffic load in a network is high. In
physical layer and MAC layer could determine the power
WBANs traffic volume will not fluctuate rapidly i.e. it is
consumption profile of a sensor node. WBAN nodes need
unlikely that suddenly many sensor nodes will initiate
to set the transmission power level to maintain a low packet
transmissions at the same time. A WBAN can be designed
delay and near zero packet error rates (PER). This section
to operate at a lower traffic level compared to the system
examines the influence of MAC protocols on the power
capacity to maintain constant delay and minimum packet
consumption profile of a WBAN node. The total energy
losses. If the traffic load remains fairly stable and lower
consumed by a WBAN node to transmit a physiological
than about 70% of a network capacity then a random access
data is given by (2). Energy consumed by a WBAN node
based protocol offers reasonably low and bounded delay.
depends on the task performed by the node to transmit a
The average packet delay of a random access protocol
packet. Four energy parameters listed in (2) corresponds to
based network is given by (1). Propagation delay is ignored
parameters in (1).
in the equation. The first term of the right hand side of the
equation represents the access delay (Taccess) which is the Et;node ¼ Etx þ Eretx þ Eacc þ Eack ð2Þ
time required by a CSMA/CA node to access the channel.
Where Et,node represents the total energy consumption of a
Access delay time in a CSMA/CA network is calculated by
WBAN node, Etx is the energy consumed to transmit an
taking the difference of a packet arrival time in the MAC
information packet, Eretx is the energy consumed to
queue to the time when the ACK packet for the transmis-
retransmit an information packet, Eacc is the amount of
sion is received indicating a successful packet transmission.
energy consumed by the channel access procedures of a
The access delay depends on the traffic load of a network.
MAC protocol, and Eack is the amount of energy consumed
Detail description of the CSMA/CA based channel access
by a node to transmit an ACK packet. Different energy
procedure can be found in [7] and [9]. The second terms
components shown in (2) will depend on a number of
represents the retransmission delay (Tretry). During the
transmission attempts and MAC protocol parameters as
access phase if a packet experiences a collision then the
shown in (3). A WBAN system design needs to optimize
transmitting node will backoff for a certain duration and
these parameters to minimize energy consumption of a
then try to retransmit the packet. The backoff period will be
node thus increasing the operating lifetime of a battery.
randomly distributed to minimize the collision probability.
In case of a collision multiple retransmission attempts may Etx ¼ f ðL; OH ; R; d; SNRÞ
be needed to resolve the collision. A packet could be E retx ¼ f ðL; OH; R; d; SNR; PER; Twait ; TLÞ
ð3Þ
dropped if the packet cannot be transmitted successfully Eacc ¼ f ðTsense ; COH; Lcon ; TL; SNRÞ
after multiple collisions. A packet retransmission can also Eack ¼ f ðLACK ; d; SNRÞ
be triggered by packet losses caused by a poor transmission
channel condition or due to a low SNR (Signal to Noise
Ratio) at a receiver. The packet retransmission mechanism L represents the length of payload (bits) in a packet.
not only affects the end-to-end delay but could also OH represents the total number of overhead bits used to
influences the battery lifetime of a WBAN node. The support a packet transmission/retransmission.
queuing delay (Tqueue) represents the buffering delay at a R transmission data rate of a channel.
node. Queuing delay will depend on the total traffic load d distance between a transmitter and a receiver.
arriving at a sensor node and transmission capacity of a SNR Signal to Noise Ratio.
network. The last term of the equation represents the packet PER Packet Error Rate.
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457 1447

Twait A node waiting period for a transmission. protocol design. Using a conventional polling process
Tsense Channel sensing period. where all nodes are polled at the same rate may result in
COH Control Overhead processes implemented at a higher power consumptions of sensor nodes. In case of
transmitter or a receiver for a particular MAC polling networks retransmission can only be initiated due to
protocol. poor channel conditions i.e. low SNR values.
LCON Average length of control packets in bits.
TL Traffic Load in a network. WBAN link power budget
LACK Acknowledgement packet length.
A WBAN node could use significant amount of energy if
This generic Eq. (3) shows the relationship between there are many retransmissions. To minimize the number of
different energy components, MAC and transmission retransmissions a WBAN node should select its transmis-
parameters. This equation can be further developed to sion power in such a way so that a receiver can receive a
calculate the energy consumption profile of various random packet with a sufficient SNR to decode the packet correctly.
access protocols. Energy consumed to transmit a packet A transmitter power is calculated using (4). A transmitter
depends on the packet structure such as the length of a must maintain a transmission power level according to the
packet and the number of overhead bits, transmission data SNR requirements of a receiver as given by (5). Selection
rate, distance between a transmitter and a receiver, of the SNR value will depend on the modulation and
minimum SNR requirements of a receiver as shown by coding techniques used by a node. The SNR value should
(3). Number of overhead bits used in a transmission will be selected in such a way that a minimum BER (Bit Error
depend on the MAC protocol. For example, a polling Rate) value can be maintained. In a WBAN the transmis-
protocol will use fewer overhead bits compared to a random sion power budget is also an important issue particularly for
access protocol. Number of overhead bits could also implanted nodes. An implant node transmitting a signal at
influenced by the protocol stack implementation. If a high power levels will cause tissue heating and which could
WBAN node directly transmits a packet to the internet result in damage of body tissues or organs. Hence, the
then it needs to implement either a TCP/IP or UDP/IP transmission power level should be selected to an optimum
layers on top of the MAC layer which will increase the level to maintain a very low BER value without causing
number of overhead bit. The transmission distance and the enough tissue heating. The relationship between BER and
SNR requirements of a receiver determine the transmission the SNR value is shown in (6). An optimal transmission
power level of a node which could influence its energy power can be set by analyzing the transmission channel
requirements. The SNR requirement is influenced by the condition and the receiver modulation characteristics.
physical layer design of a node and its transmission Equations (4–6) can be used to calculate the optimal
environments. Energy consumed to retransmit a packet will transmission power level [11].
depend on same parameters as Etx as well as on the Packet
Error Rate value which determines the number of retrans- Prx ¼ Ptx  PL  PF þ Gtx þ Grx ð4Þ
missions and the waiting time of each retransmission. Note
that depending on the transmission channel condition a
packet may require multiple retransmissions before the Prx
SNR ¼ ð5Þ
packet is successfully received. A node may have to Nth þ Nawgn þ I
increase its packet transmission interval if many packets
fail to successfully transmit in a certain location or within a
 
certain time. In some cases retransmission of packets could SNR ¼ Eb Rb
No
significantly increase the energy consumption of a node.
Bqffiffiffiffiffi ð6Þ
1
Retransmissions can be initiated either due to poor channel BER ¼ erfc
2
Eb
No
conditions or higher traffic levels in a network as shown by
(3). A node consumes certain amount of energy as shown
by (2). For a random network based on the CSMA/CA Ptx Transmitter power
protocol using the RTS/CTS (Ready To Send/Clear To Prx Received Power
Send) option a node needs to access the transmission PL Path loss
channel using a RTS packet and reserves a channel using PF Loss due to fading processes
the CTS packet. Transmission and reception of these Gtx Transmitting antenna gain
packets will consume additional energy. Whereas in case Grx Receiver antenna gain
of a polling network energy usage by a WBAN node will Nth Thermal noise power measured at the receiver
depend on the actual design of polling sequences and the Nawgn AWGN level at the receiver
1448
I Interference signal at the input of the receiver
Rb Transmission bit rate
B Transmission bandwidth
Battery life cycle analysis of a WBAN
As discussed in the previous section that the power
consumption of a WBAN node will depend on the
transmission environments. Herein we study the perform-
ances of polling and CSMA/CA based protocols to analyze
the battery life cycle of a WBAN system. Optimum
transmission power of a WBAN node depends on a few
factors including application types, MAC protocol, trans-
mission channel conditions and error control procedures
used. Initially to analyze the battery life cycle of WBAN
nodes, we use a MATLAB simulation model which consists
of battery models, transmission link and MAC protocol
functional models. Further we extend the simulation model
to examine the power transmission profile of an implanted
node. Battery life cycle analysis is more important for
implanted nodes than an external node. Following sections
we briefly introduce battery models and the transmission
model which have been used in the simulation to examine
the battery lifetime to transmit different physiological
signals.
Battery phenomena
There are a number of battery phenomena affecting both
charge and discharge outcomes of a battery. Two important
phenomena are the rate-capacity effect and the recovery
effect. The rate-capacity effect of a battery is the idea that
draws a large, continuous current from a battery will lead to
it depleting faster than expected. In an ideal battery, it is
assumed that the voltage stays constant for the entire life of
a battery, and then drops to zero. In the real world however,
voltage is not constant over the entire usual life of the
battery—instead it drops during discharge. This drop in
voltage during discharge varies in severity from battery to
battery. In all cases though, it leads to a perceived drop in
battery capacity. Figure 3 shows the typical rate capacity
characteristics of a battery for a continuous and an
intermittent load situation [12]. An intermittent transmis-
sion is a typically an OFF/ON scenario when a transmitter
sends data for a brief period and then moves into an
inactive state. When a transmitter moves to an inactive state
the battery load will be low, allowing the battery to recover.
Figure 3 indicates that an intermittent application could
prolong the life of a battery due to the recovery effect. For a
continuous discharge, the slope remains fairly constant as
expected. For an intermittent discharge however, the battery
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
is able to recover some of the lost charges, resulting in a
piecewise-continuous discharge slope. There are a number
of models that describe the battery discharge processes.
Each model type has varying degrees of accuracy and
complexity. This work investigates analytical and stochastic
battery models as they typically provide a high accuracy
and low complexity solution. In this work we utilise two
battery models; one is based on Peukert’s law and the other
one is based on a Kinetic model known as the KiBaM [13].
Peukert’s Law
Life time of a battery can be calculated at a constant load
current I, by simply dividing its total capacity by I.
Peukert’s law calculates the battery lifetime by incorporat-
ing the rate capacity system. Equation (7) presents the
Peukert’s law that can be used to calculate the lifetime of a
battery.
aC
L¼ ð7Þ
Ib
where L is battery lifetime (hours), C is battery capacity
(Ampere-hour), I is load current (Ampere), a is a constant
(a≤1), b is a constant (b=1.05~1.8). Peukert’s Law is
sufficient in dealing with the rate-capacity effect. The
dividend of (7) includes a constant, b, that results in greater
load currents, actually decreasing the overall battery life.
While Peukert’s Law describes the rate-capacity effect, it
fails to address the recovery effect.
Kinetic Battery Model
The Kinetic Battery Model (KiBaM) is an analytical battery
model developed by Manwell and McGowan [12]. This
model is visualized as a two-well model as shown in Fig. 4.
It consists of a bound-charge well and an available-charge
well. The available-charge well, y1 supplies charge to the
Fig. 3 Battery recovery effect characteristics
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
Fig. 4 KiBaM model with two Well visualizations
current load I, whereas, the bound-charge well y2, supplies
charge to the available-charge well, y1.
There are two parameters associated with the KiBaM
model, k and c. The parameter k is defined as the rate at
which charge flows from the bound-charge well to the
available charge well. The parameter c is defined as
the fraction of the battery capacity that is initially in the
available-charge well. Both of these parameters affect the
recovery effect ability of the battery being modeled.
The two-well model is a common occurrence in
mathematics, physics and engineering. Equations (8) and
(9) describe the charging and discharging processes of this
model.
dy1
¼ I þ k ðh2  h1 Þ ð8Þ
dt
dy2
¼ k ðh2  h1 Þ ð9Þ
dt
here y1 is volume of the available-charge well, y2 is the
volume of the bound-charge well, h1 is the height of the
available-charge well, h2 is the height of the bound-charge
well, I is the load current. The parameter k defines the rate
at which charge flows from the bound-charge well to the
available-charge well. The parameter c defines the initial
height in each of the wells. These two models are
incorporated in the MATLAB simulation modeled to
measure the battery lifetime for different applications.
Transmission Channel Model
A transmission channel model is simulated in the MATLAB
simulator to examine the battery lifetime. A number of
transmission channel models have been proposed by the
IEEE802.15.6 working group for WBAN applications [6].
These scenarios include implant to implant node transmis-
sion, implant to body surface, implant to an external node
transmission, etc. For the implant to external node
communications, a frequency band of 402–405 MHz is
1449
generally used. In this work we used the channel model 2
(CM2) implant to body surface communication channel.
The propagation model is consists of a two-hop model.
First, hop is modeled by an inside body propagation model
and the second hop is modeled by the free space path loss
model. Inside body communication is approximated by
(10). Since it is difficult to obtain transmission loss
experimental result for inside body communication a
statistical path loss model has been proposed by the IEEE
802.15.6 working group. The path loss model used for the
second hop transmission is shown in (11). The statistical
path loss model equation for implant to external node
communication is given by Eq. (10). The path loss [PL(d0)]
values of 47.14 dB and 49.81 dB were found for deep
tissue and near the body surface transmission respectively.
Signal received at an external node from an implant node
can be calculated by Eqs. (10) and (11).
 
d
PLðdÞ ¼ PLðd0 Þ þ 10nlog10 þS ð10Þ
d0
Where S~N (0, σs) and d0 =50mm.
 
d
PLðdÞ ¼ PL0 þ 10nlog10 ð11Þ
d0
Where PL0 is the path loss at a reference distance do, and n
is the path loss exponent.
It was discussed in the previous section that the battery
lifetime of a WBAN node will depend on transmission
power requirements and the transmission channel condi-
tion. Transmission power requirements will depend on the
path loss condition, BER requirements and the receiver
sensitivity. Figure 5 show an implanted node to an external
node link performance in terms of received power and the
packet error rate. In this simulation we used a low power
transmitter to minimize the possibility of any tissue
damage. Figure 5b show that for a 10 μW transmitter the
PER (Packet Error Rate) value remains low for about
900 mm transmission distance. With a 25 μW transmitter
error free transmission is possible up to 1.2 m. To maximize
the battery lifetime of a WBAN node it is necessary to
operate at near zero PER so that retransmissions can be
avoided.
Now we examine the effect of MAC protocols on the
battery lifetime of a WBAN node. We simulated a WBAN
with four nodes to study the effect of the Slotted ALOHA,
CSMA/CA and a polling protocol on the battery life
transmitting different physiological data. Table 2 lists
various simulation parameters used to analyse the lifetime
of a battery. We used the MICS frequency band and
parameters of the Zarlink’s IC ZL70101 medical implant
RF transceiver in our simulation model [14]. Using a packet
size of 1,024 bytes we calculate energy requirements of a
1450
Received Power for Scenario 3 - Implant to External
0 1
Received Power (dBm)
-
-
- 0
0 1
10 1 1
Distance (mm)
(a)
Fig. 5 An implanted node to external node characteristics; (a) received power (b) packet error rate
node to transmit packets using different MAC protocols.
Equation 2 is used to calculate the required energy values.
We also use an average collision probabilities and PER
values to measure the battery lifetime. Collision probabil-
ities and PER values are listed in Table 2. We use different
type of sensors to examine the battery lifetime since they
transmit packets using different time schedules. In the
simulation three sensor types are considered—blood pres-
sure, respiratory rate and body temperature. Each of these
sensors generates different number of samples per second
which determines the number of packets transmitted. Result
shows that a polling network has the highest packet
transmission delay because every node must wait for a
cycle time before it can transmit a packet. On the other
hand CSMA/CA and S-ALOHA nodes terminals can
initiate packet transmission as soon as a packet arrives in
the MAC queue. When there are only few transmitters then
CSMA/CA and S-ALOHA nodes will incur a lower
transmission delay compared to a polling network.
It is also expected that the different multiple access
methods will result in different duty cycles of battery load.
This is because each multiple access method results in a
different packet transmission time as well as overheads as
shown in (1) and (2). With a set number of samples
required per second for different sensors, the duty cycle of a
WBAN node will be modified accordingly. To analyse the
battery life time initially we assumed a variable transmis-
sion channel condition with different packet error rates as
shown in Table 2. The packet error rate is varied from no
error condition to 1 in 100 packets being corrupted due to
transmission channel condition which require retransmis-
sions. Similarly, we also introduce transmission channel
contentions levels when a packet transmission is failed due
to the collision process. For the polling MAC protocol the
contention value is set 0, for the CSMA/CA protocol we
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
PER for Scenario 3 - Implant to External (Packet Size = 1024)
Pt=10uW Pt=10uW
Pt=25uW 0.9 Pt=25uW
0.8
0.7
0.6
PER
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
2 3 4 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
1 1
0 0 0 0
Distance (mm)
(b)
used an average contention value of 0.1 which means that
out of every ten packets one packet will be colliding, hence
require a transmission. Similarly for the S-ALOHA proto-
col we used a contention value of 0.35. These variable
channel conditions and average contention level will show
a typical power consumption level of a WBAN node.
Table 3 summarises the results of the battery life cycle
obtained from simulation. The simulation model imple-
ments a transmission channel model, a battery model and a
MAC protocol to analyse the battery life. The model uses
four patients in the simulation model. For each physiolog-
ical data we have used three different MAC protocols to
measure the battery lifetime. Table shows that for all
applications the S-ALOHA protocol performs best due to
minimum overhead and no channel sensing mechanism.
Results also show that the polling protocol consumes
maximum energy because in this case the CCU always
polls each WBAN node at the maximum data transmission
rate to minimise data transmission delay and to maximise
reliability. In the simulation we assume that a polling
network will poll all WBAN nodes once in every cycle to
satisfy low delay and reliability criterions. In the simulation
all nodes are polled at a rate of 20 polls/sec. We used three
different sensors (heart rate, ECG and body temperature)
which produce traffic with different inter-arrival time and
hence packets from sensors arrive at the transmission buffer
of nodes at different times. Without constant polling some
packets may experience longer transmission delay which
could be detrimental for a patient monitoring system. Due
to constant polling all nodes must remain awake to monitor
the polling signals resulting in higher energy use. Mean-
while since the CSMA/CA and S-ALOHA are not
centralised protocols, they can consume energy only when
a packet arrives in a transmission buffer. Results also show
that the KibaM model predicts longer battery life because it
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457 1451

Table 2 Battery discharge sim-

ulation parameters Parameter Value

Wireless standard MICS

Number of patients 4
Data rate 250 kbps
Packet size [bits] 1,024
Average power consumption PTX 5 mA
PRX 5 mA
Pidle 250 nA
Pother 25 mA
Average time to transmit a packet (including queuing delay) CSMA/CA 5.7 ms
Polling 18.2 ms
Slotted ALOHA 4.1 ms
Ion CSMA/CA 35 mA
Polling 35 mA
Slotted ALOHA 30 mA
Ioff CSMA/CA 250 nA
Polling 250 nA
Slotted ALOHA 250 nA
PER 0, 10−4, 10−2
Collision probability (Poll, CSMA/CA, S-ALOHA) 0, 0.1, 0.35
Battery capacity 500mAh
Minimum battery charge 20%
Battery parameters Peukert – a 1
Peukert – b 1.05
KiBaM – k 4.5×10−5
KiBaM – c 0.625
Sensor sampling rate (Hz) Blood pressure 4
Respiratory rate 20
Body temperature 0.2

considers the battery recovery process. One can see from
the battery life time that applications with longer sampling
time will increase the battery life time due to fewer packet
transmissions and the recovery effect.
Performance analysis of a WBAN based patient
monitoring system
In this section a multi-hop patient monitoring system based
on ZigBee technology has been realized and the important
performance results are discussed. ZigBee is one of most
popular wireless platform for short-range wireless networks
suitable for patient monitoring systems. Battery life analysis
results show that a CSMA/CA based system can consume
lower energy as well as it can offer other advantages such
as lower transmission delay, scalability, support of asyn-
chronous and synchronous traffic sources. Although the S-
ALOHA protocol consumes lowest power but the protocol
cannot offer reliability and scalability features. Zigbee is a
CSMA/CA MAC protocol based wireless sensor network
which can support a modest data rate. Detail description of
the Zigbee protocol can be found in the following
references [15, 16]. A CSMA/CA based WBAN is scalable
and could offer lower delay with required QoS if properly
designed. Recently a TDMA based WBAN system has
been presented in [17]. The work mainly considered
throughput enhancement and delay reduction technique.
However, the paper did not consider different traffic
generators representing medical applications. As mentioned
earlier that one of the main drawbacks of a TDMA based
system is the scalability. Also, results presented in
section Battery life cycle analysis of WBAN shows that
the CSMA/CA protocol can support longer operational
battery life hence; we have decided to further examine the
performance of a CSMA/CA MAC protocol for WBAN
applications.
Figure 6 show a typical WBAN network architecture for
patient monitoring applications. The data from each sensor
is transmitted to a PCU (Patient Coordinator Unit-A
1452 J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457

Table 3 Battery lifetime esti-

mation in a WBAN Sensor Battery model Multiple access method Battery life

[Hours] [Days]

Heart rate Peukert’s Law CSMA/CA 411.48 17.14

Polling 124.38 5.18
Slotted ALOHA 675.04 28.13
KiBaM CSMA/CA 450.05 18.75
Polling 159.20 6.63
S-ALOHA 706.36 29.43
ECG Peukert’s Law CSMA/CA 76.55 3.19
Polling 19.14 0.80
S-ALOHA 135.01 5.63
KiBaM CSMA/CA 83.75 3.49
Polling 24.49 1.02
S-ALOHA 141.33 5.89
Body temperature Peukert’s Law CSMA/CA 8384.99 349.36
Polling 2621.17 109.22
S-ALOHA 13700.6 570.86
KiBaM CSMA/CA 9119.24 379.97
Polling 3349.22 139.55
Slotted ALOHA 14203.2 591.8

wearable device that can be carried, wearable by the
patient). The PCU aggregates sensor data and transmit
them to a CCU (Central Coordination Unit) located at a
short distance. The PCU can gather data from both implant
and external nodes. The CCU act as an intermediate
network device (i.e. Gateway) that forwards the collected
medical data to a patient database (DB) where remote
monitoring devices can retrieve patients’ data for healthcare
professions. Each patient body forms a PAN (Personal Area
Network) where a PCU acts as the PAN coordinator. A
PAN is a standard small network structure used in a Zigbee
network where a coordinator node acts as a master and all
other nodes acts as slave nodes [9]. In this WBAN
application the CCU acts as the PAN coordinator for all
PCUs which can be considered as a second tier network.
All nodes in each PAN will synchronize with their PAN
coordinators. In case of signaling failure a coordinator may
not be able to form a PAN in time resulting in transmission
failures. The network operates in a multi-hop fashion where
each link transmits data using the CSMA/CA protocol.
Relay nodes such as the PCU and the CCU can be
configured in two ways. One of the configurations is that
these nodes simply act as forwarding node i.e. it receives a
packet and simply forward the packet to the next link.
Other configuration is that these nodes receive multiple
packets from sensor nodes, and then encapsulates multiple
packets and forward a larger packet. The former approach
can be implemented with nodes with low processing
capability whereas later approach reduces the number of
transmission access on the forward link thus reducing
probability of collisions for a ZigBee based system.
In a WBAN it is advised to reduce the number of
transmitted packets from sensor nodes to reduce the
contention level and power consumption of nodes in a
network to improve reliability and delay performance. To
achieve these objectives, the sensor nodes may aggregate
multiple physiological data and transmit in a single packet
[18]. As shown from Table 1 that data sample sizes are
quite small only 12 bits/sample which is much smaller than
the minimum header length of 802.15.4 packet. Sending
each sample separately will increase the contention level
significantly, which will result in an increase in the packet
loss and delay. In order to reduce the contention level it will
be prudent to opportunistically combine multiple samples
and transmit those samples in a single packet. Later in the
performance analysis section the effectiveness of data
aggregation technique will be further discussed. The
multi-hop network shown in Fig. 6 may have interference
problem when the CSMA/CA protocol is used, unless
packet transmissions are coordinated. As mentioned earlier
that the network shown in the figure is a three tier network
where first tier is consist of sensor nodes and its PCU, the
second tier is consist of PCUs and the CCU, and the final
tier is consists of CCUs and the DB. A transmission on a
network tier could interfere with transmissions from other
tiers. For example, a sensor node to PCU transmission can
interfere with the transmission between the CCU to DB. To
avoid this problem to happen, it is necessary to control
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
Fig. 6 A WBAN based multi-hop patient monitoring system. Each patient’s body forms a PAN and consists of sensor nodes and the PCU
power level of each transmissions as well as some form of
loose scheduling is necessary to avoid or to reduce collision
levels. Also, the relay configuration could reduce the
problem.
In this section we analyze the performance of the above
WBAN scenario for patient monitoring applications using
an OPNET simulation model [19]. The OPNET simulation
model of a single PAN i.e. a network of all sensors on a
single patient body is shown in Fig. 7. We extend this
model to analyze the performance of a multi-hop network
where patient data is transmitted from sensors to the data
base (DB) using the PCU and CCU as relay nodes [19]. In
the body area network model, we simulated all sensors but
the nerve potential traffic generators listed in Table 1. In the
initial simulation model all sensors are connected using
individual ZigBee transmitters. When the aggregate data
model is used then a number of sensors are connected to a
single transmitter. In the later section we discuss the effect
of data aggregation on the WBAN performance. Figure 8
shows the packet structure used in the simulation.
The physical layer generates the packet by encapsulating
the MPDU (MAC Protocol Data Unit) with the physical
layer overheads. The minimum header length is 18 bytes
1453
long. Considering the transmission efficiency such a large
overhead introduces a design constraint for the WBAN. As
discussed before that each physiological signal sample is
only 12 bits long hence, it will be inefficient to transmit a
single sample in a packet. Sending a short payload not only
reduces the transmission efficiencies but also increases the
probability of collisions consequently increasing packet
delay and losses. Increasing contention level in a random
access network has further consequences on the power
consumption of sensor nodes. Higher contention level in a
CSMA network introduces more collisions and retrans-
missions. When packets are retransmitted more frequently,
then a node consumes higher power level which increases
the joules/bit count thus decreasing the battery life. When
retransmission is used the energy consumption increases
because same information is transmitted multiple times
before a packet is successfully received. Most of the
ZigBee Integrated Circuits (IC)’s will consume highest
power when the device is transmitting data [20]. So, it is
necessary to optimize the number transmission and retrans-
mission of packets to reduce the packet delay and loss as
well as to reduce the power consumption requirements of
sensor nodes. As discussed that reducing energy consump-
1454 J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457

Fig. 7 OPNET simulation mod-

el of a single patient body area
network

tion of a WBAN should be one primary objective of the
MAC design and hence it is necessary to utilize a packet
transmission technique taking into account of energy
consumption issues. Although the CSMA/CA protocol
introduces the contention/collisions in a network which
may results in packet losses or delay but this protocol
handles both periodic and non-periodic data with equal
efficiencies. Later we will show that by appropriately
selecting parameters and traffic levels the QoS parameters
of patient monitoring system can be improved.
Multiple useful simulation results are obtained using an
OPNET simulation model developed to realize a multi-
hoping WBAN system. Figure 9 shows the packet loss and
packet generation rate of the simulated WBAN for different
payload sizes. Result shows that with the increasing
payload size the throughput of WBAN increases due to
fewer transmission attempts. With single sample/payload
average payload size is increased to 120 bits/packet then the
number of transmission attempts is dropped to 50 packets/
sec offering 100% throughput in the network. The
improvement in the efficiency can be achieved due to
lower contention level in the network which resulted fewer
packet losses due to the packet dropping threshold. In this
simulation, we used five retransmission attempts as the
packet dropping threshold, which means if a packet is
unable to successfully transmit a packet in five successive
attempts then the packet is dropped from the transmission
queue.
The delay profile of the WBAN for different payload
sizes is investigated and presented in Fig. 10. The plot
shows that the average packet delay decreases with the
increasing payload size. Both results (Figs. 9 and10) show
100% 350
Successful Transmissions (%)

(12 bits) the network only manages to successfully transmit 300

Generated Packets/Sec
80%
120 packets offering a success rate of 40%. When the 250

60% 200

150
40%
100
20%
50

0% 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Payload Size (bits)
Successful Transmissions (%)" Geneated Packets/sec)
Fig. 8 Zigbee packet structure used in the simulation model. The
MPDU represents MAC Protocol Data Unit and PPDU represents the Fig. 9 WBAN packet loss and packet generation rate for different
Physical layer Protocol Data Unit data aggregation rate/payload size
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
Fig. 10 WBAN delay profile for different payload sizes
the same trend. The delay profile shows that delay
decreases more sharply when the payload size is between
12 to 120 bits. This characteristic can be explained using
the Eq. (1). As shown in the equation the end-to-end delay
has four major components. The first three delay compo-
nents Taccess, Tretry and Tqueue are contention level depen-
dent. For a smaller payload the contention level increases
due to the frequent network access causes significant rise in
all these delay components. As the payload size exceeds the
total header size the packet transmission delay Tpacket
becomes the dominant component of the overall delay.
During the simulation it was observed that when single
sample is used as the payload per packet some of the ECG
sensor nodes are not able to get any access to the network.
From Table 1 it can be seen that the ECG node is a
demanding node in terms of transmission access. It requires
the transmission channel access after every 2 ms with a data
rate requirement of 6 kbs. However, when the overhead bits
of a packet is considered the actual data rate for the ECG
links become 72 kbs. One can see from these results that
the selection of packet size and frequency of packets
transmissions in a WBAN is very important from the
reliability and QoS point of view.
It is important to investigate the performance of an in
interconnected WBAN to analyze the performance of a
multi-patient monitoring system [21]. In the proposed
scenario, it is assumed that all patients’ sensor nodes
transmit their data via the PCU and CCU to the DB. As
Fig. 11 Delay profile of the Multi-patient monitoring system
1455
Fig. 12 Data generation and application throughput profile in a multi-
patient monitoring system
discussed earlier that in this model PCUs and CCUs are
simply acting as a relay node and forwarding those data to
the DB. In order to minimize the number of packets we use
the data aggregation technique at the source node. In this
simulation we connect all sensors shown in Fig. 7 via two
sensor nodes transmitting data. One of the sensor nodes
(sensor 1) aggregates ECG, body temperature and blood pH
data and transmits these data after every 145 ms generating
7 packets/sec. The other sensor node (sensor 2) aggregates
data from the blood flow, blood pressure and respiratory
rate sensor and transmit these data after every 485 ms
generating 3 packets/sec. This aggregated packet structure
allows 73 data samples with a payload size of 880 bits/
packet. Using the aggregation technique each PAN gen-
erates only 10 packets/sec. The effective data rate require-
ment of sensor 1 and sensor 2 becomes 6.05 kbs and
1.92 kbs respectively.
The delay profile for a multi-patient networking scenario
is depicted in Fig. 11. The plot shows the average end-to-
end delay which is the total delay over 3 hops (sen-
sor→PCU, PCU→CCU and CCU→DB). It is observed
that the delay increases with the increasing number of
patients. In this case the main reason for the increase in
delay is caused by the contention or interference from
different PANs. For an operating ZigBee network, sensor
Fig. 13 Packet dropping profile in a multi-patient monitoring system.
Figure shows packet dropping rate due expiry of retransmission
threshold and the PAN formation error
1456
Table 4 Node transmission
power Node type Maximum transmission distance (m)
Sensor
PCU
CCU
DB
nodes on each patient’s body forms a working PAN with
the PCU as the coordinator. In a multi-hop networking
collisions can happen either within a PAN or between
PANs; when simultaneous transmission goes on in different
PANs. Also, transmission from the PCU to CCU or from
the CCU to DB transmissions can be interfered by the
transmissions from other PANs if the IEEE802.15.4 MAC
is used on all the links. In our simulation all the wireless
links used the CSMA/CA protocol. The end-to-end delay in
Fig. 11 is sum of the all hop delays as shown by (12). The
delay plot shows that the delay profile for up to 6 patients is
quite acceptable where the average packet delay is about
170 ms. A monitoring system will be able to transmit large
number of samples within this 170 ms due to the
aggregation technique used.
X
N
Tee ¼ Td ðlink Þi ð12Þ
i¼1
The application throughput profile of the monitoring
system which is presented in Fig. 12 was obtained using
the OPNET simulation model. Figure shows that the
application throughput remains 100% for up to three
patients. The application throughput starts to drop due
higher end to end delay and contention. In this network
each packet crosses three links where packets may
experience collision on all links depending on the trans-
mission status of other networks. Application throughput
can be increased if higher end-to-end delay is tolerated.
Both the application throughput and delay can be tuned by
controlling the backoff parameters and the number of
allowable retransmission attempts used to resolve colli-
sions. For a WBAN based system design one needs to tune
the traffic and MAC protocol parameters to compromise
between the delay and the throughput. When contention
level increases packets could be lost due to two main
reasons; one is expiry of packet lifetime due to fixed
number of retransmission attempts, secondly due to the
PAN formation error as depicted in Fig. 13. If sensor nodes
are unable to communicate with its PAN coordinator then a
PAN formation error occurs. When the PAN formation error
occurs then sensor nodes in that PAN cannot transmit any
packet. A PAN error can occurs due to the failure of
signaling packet transmission which can be caused by the
collisions or interference from other PANs or links in a
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
Power constraint Transmit power (dBm)
0.5 High −50
8 Medium −26.6
8 Low 0
10 Low 0
multi-hop network. Figure 13 shows that the PAN forma-
tion error starts to appear when the number of patients
exceeds 3. To minimize the effect of collision and
interference on other links in this simulation we used
variable transmission powers as shown in Table 4. The
table shows that the PCU and CCU are transmitting at
higher levels than the sensor nodes because CCU and PCU
will need to cover longer transmission distances. Higher
transmission power of CCU and PCU is mainly responsible
for interfering with other PAN transmission. A suggested
method for a ZigBee based design approach would be to
use the GTS slots for PCU and CCU transmissions and use
the CAP slots for the sensor nodes [15]. This means that
higher power nodes will not interfere with the sensor nodes
and hence the contention levels will significantly drop.
Conclusions
In this paper WBAN design techniques are presented
including the key performance results related to patient
monitoring systems using wireless sensor network. The
power consumption profiles of a number of MAC protocols
are considered for WBAN applications. We have demon-
strated that a MAC protocol plays a critical role in
determining power consumption, reliability of transmis-
sions and throughput of a network. We examined three
classes of MAC protocols and compare key features of
those protocols for patient monitoring applications. The
paper shows that a random access protocol based on the
CSMA/CA architecture could be used to potentially
develop a flexible and reliable patient monitoring system.
From the design and implementation point of view the
CSMA/CA protocol based Zigbee standard can be used to
develop a low cost patient monitoring system. The paper
also presented several key performance results which are
also very useful for selecting appropriate network param-
eters for increased reliability and throughput. Packet size
and its transmission sequences can affect the operation of a
PAN as well as other PANs in a multi-hop networking
environment. Although power control mechanism could
reduce the effect of interference which can be minimized by
carefully selecting packet transmission sequences. Using
the developed simulation model we have shown that the
selection payload size and packet transmission sequences
J Med Syst (2012) 36:1441–1457
can significantly influence the performance of a WBAN.
The proposed WBAN architecture can also be extended for
sports training activities where athletes could be trained and
monitored for both indoor and outdoor sport activities.
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