Energy-Efficient and QoS-Aware Link Adaptation With Resource Allocation for Periodical Monitoring Traffic in SmartBANs

Abstract

[eng] Limited energy resources of sensors and stringentquality-of-service(QoS) constraints inbiomedical applications raise serious concerns when utilized in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs).The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Smart Body Area Network (SmartBAN)represents a standardized communication interface and protocol between a hub coordinator and a set ofsensors, that has been designed with simplicity and low power in mind. This work presents an ETSISmartBAN PHY and MAC configuration framework that remarkably lengthens sensors battery lifespanthrough reducing transceivers consumed energy. To that end, and taking into account the channel quality andpacket error rate requisites of sensors, a mechanism to select between the different PHY transmission modesof the standard is proposed. This link adaptation scheme is combined with a resource allocation algorithmthat derives the duration of the inter-beacon intervals and the transmission periods of sensors, while fulfillingtraffic delay constraints and minimizing sensors transceivers energy consumption. Analytical expressions forpacket error rate of all available PHY transmission modes, as well as for traffic delay, transceivers energysavings of hub and sensor nodes, and battery duration, are derived. Computer simulation results substantiatethe efficacy of both, the presented QoS-aware adaptive transmission scheme and the resource allocationalgorithm, in fulfilling the target packet error rate and delay requirements, while significantly expanding thebattery duration, specially for sensors with long elapsed times between successive sensing intervals (up to a515% increase and a 960% increase are obtained for the two considered simulation scenarios).