Delay, Reliability, and Throughput Based QoS Profile: A MAC Layer Performance Optimization Mechanism for Biomedical Applications in Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks

Recently, increasing demand for remote healthcare monitoring systems poses a specific set of Quality of Services (QoS) requirements to the MAC layer protocols and standards (IEEE 802.15.6, IEEE 802.15.4, etc.) of Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks (WBASNs). They mainly include time bounded services (latency), reliable data transmission, fair channel distribution, and specified data rates. The existing MAC protocols of WBASNs are lack of a specific set of QoS. To address this, the paper proposes a QoS profile named delay, reliability, and throughput (DRT). The QoS values computed through DRT profile provide maximum reliability of data transmission within an acceptable latency and data rates. The DRT is based on the carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) channel access mechanism and considers IEEE 802.15.4 (low-rate WPAN) and IEEE 802.15.6 (WBASN). Further, a detailed performance analysis of different frequency bands is done which are standardized for WBASNs, that is, 420 MHz, 868 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and so forth. Finally, a series of experiments are conducted to produce statistical results for DRT profile with respect to delay, reliability, and packet delivery ratio (PDR). The calculated results are verified through extensive simulations in the CASTALIA 3.2 framework using the OMNET++ network simulator.