Wireless body area networks have recently received much attention because of their application to assisted living and remote patient monitoring. For these applications, energy minimisation is a critical issue since, in many cases, batteries cannot be easily replaced or recharged. Reducing energy expenditure by avoiding unnecessary high transmission power and minimising frame retransmissions is therefore crucial. In this study, a transmit power control scheme suitable for IEEE 802.15.6 networks operating in beacon mode with superframe boundaries is proposed. The transmission power is modulated, frame-by-frame, according to a run-time estimation of the channel conditions. Power measurements using the beacon frames are made periodically, providing reverse channel gain and an opportunistic fade margin, set on the basis of prior power fluctuations, is added. This approach allows tracking of the highly variable on-body to on-body propagation channel without the need to transmit additional probe frames. An experimental study based on test cases demonstrates the effectiveness of the scheme and compares its performance with alternative solutions presented in the literature.

References

1. 1)
  - 15. Moulton, B., Hanlen, L., Chen, J., Croucher, G., Mahendran, L., Varis, A.: ‘Body-area-network transmission power control using variable adaptive feedback periodicity’. Proc. Communications Theory Workshop (AusCTW), Australian, February 2010, pp. 139–144.
2. 2)
  - 9. Jacobsen, R., Kortermand, K., Zhang, Q., Toftegaard, T.: ‘Understanding link behavior of non-intrusive wireless body sensor networks’, Wirel. Pers. Commun., English, 2012, 64, pp. 561–582 (doi: 10.1007/s11277-012-0601-y).
3. 3)
  - 20. Di Franco, F., Tachtatzis, C., Graham, B., Tracey, D., Timmons, N., Morrison, J.: ‘On-body to on-body channel characterization’. Proc. IEEE Sensors,Limerick, Ireland, October 2011, pp. 908–911.
4. 4)
  - 2. Di Franco, F., Tachtatzis, C., Graham, B., et al: ‘The effect of body shape and gender on wireless body area network on-body channels’. Proc. IEEE Middle East Conf. Antennas and Propagation (MECAP),Cairo, Egypt, October 2010, pp. 1–3.
5. 5)
  - 5. Rezvani, S., Ghorashi, S.: ‘Context aware and channel-based resource allocation for wireless body area networks’, IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2013, 3, (1), pp. 16–25 (doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2012.0100).
6. 6)
  - 13. Pavon, J., Choi, S.: ‘Link adaptation strategy for IEEE 802.11 WLAN via received signal strength measurement’. Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Communications, ICC 2003, Anchorage, Alaska, USA, May 2003, vol. 2, pp. 1108–1113.
7. 7)
  - 17. FCC 12-54: Amendment of the Commission's Rules to Provide Spectrum for the Operation of Medical Body Area Networks.
8. 8)
  - 8. Lin, C.-S., Chuang, P.-J.: ‘Energy-efficient two-hop extension protocol for wireless body area networks’, IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2013, 3, (1), pp. 37–56 (doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2012.0070).
9. 9)
  - 11. Kopta, V., Pengg, F., Le Roux, E., Enz, C.: ‘A 2.4-GHz low power polar transmitter for wireless body area network applications’. Proc. IEEE 11th Int. New Circuits and Systems Conf. (NEWCAS),Paris, France, 2013, pp. 1–4.
10. 10)
  - 4. Li, H., Tan, J.: ‘Heartbeat-driven medium-access control for body sensor networks’, IEEE Trans. Inf. Technol. Biomed., 2010, 14, (1), pp. 44–51 (doi: 10.1109/TITB.2009.2028136).
11. 11)
  - 6. Bouabdallah, F., Bouabdallah, N., Boutaba, R.: ‘Efficient reporting node selection-based MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks’, Wirel. Netw., 2013, 19, (3), pp. 373–391 (doi: 10.1007/s11276-012-0473-9).
12. 12)
  - O. Okundu , W.A.C. Wai , A.J. Burdett , C. Toumazou . Energy efficient Medium Access Protocol for wireless medical body area sensor networks. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Circuits Syst. , 4 , 251 - 259
13. 13)
  - 14. Smith, D., Hanlen, L., Miniutti, D.: ‘Transmit power control for wireless body area networks using novel channel prediction’. Proc. IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conf. (WCNC), Paris, France, April 2012, pp. 684–688.
14. 14)
  - 12. Jeong, J., Culler, D., Oh, J.-H.: ‘Empirical analysis of transmission power control algorithms for wireless sensor networks’. Proc. Fourth Int. Conf. Networked Sensing Systems, INSS 2007, Braunschweig, Germany, June 2007, pp. 27–34.
15. 15)
  - 1. IEEE 802.15.6: ‘IEEE standard for local and metropolitan area networks part 15.6: wireless body area networks’. IEEE Std 802.15.6-2012, 2012, pp. 1–271.
16. 16)
  - 16. Xiao, S., Dhamdhere, A., Sivaraman, V., Burdett, A.: ‘Transmission power control in body area sensor networks for healthcare monitoring’, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., 2009, 27, (1), pp. 37–48 (doi: 10.1109/JSAC.2009.090105).
17. 17)
  - S.L. Chen , H.Y. Lee , C.A. Chen , H.Y. Huang , C.H. Luo . Wireless body sensor network with adaptive low power design for biometrics and healthcare applications. IEEE Syst. J. , 4 , 398 - 409
18. 18)
  - 7. Natarajan, A., de, S.B., Yap, K.-K., Motani, M.: ‘To hop or not to hop: network architecture for body sensor networks’. Proc. Sixth Annual IEEE Communications Society Conf. Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks SECON 2009, New Orleans, USA, June 2009, pp. 1–9.
19. 19)
  - 19. Hanlen, L., Chaganti, V., Gilbert, B., Rodda, D., Lamahewa, T., Smith, D.: ‘Open-source testbed for body area networks: 200 sample/sec, 12 hrs continuous measurement’. Proc. IEEE 21st Int. Symp. Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications Workshops (PIMRC Workshops), Istanbul, Turkey, September 2010, pp. 66–71.
20. 20)
  - 21. CC2420 Single-Chip 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 Compliant and ZigBee Ready RF Transceiver, URL: http://www.ti.com/product/cc2420.
21. 21)
  - 18. Latr, B., Braem, B., Moerman, I., Blondia, C., Demeester, P.: ‘A survey on wireless body area networks’, Wirel. Netw. English, 2011, 17, pp. 1–18 (doi: 10.1007/s11276-010-0252-4).

Channel estimation and transmit power control in wireless body area networks

References

Related content