Use of IEEE 802.15.4e for a cooperator-assisted wireless body area network

In a wearable wireless body area network (BAN), cooperative relaying, not self-retransmission, enables link connections between a central coordinator and nodes reliable since human postures do not change the states of the links in quite-short duration such as a retransmission interval. In this paper, we discuss MAC protocols suited for a cooperator-assisted BAN, and show two kinds of MAC designs such as a hybrid-TDMA/CSMA and a TDMA realizable on the IEEE 802.15.4e standard. We evaluate the packet error rate and power consumption by computer simulations where the stored received signal strength indication (RSSI) data are used, which were obtained from experiments with three subjects in a realistic scenario composed of a series of different actions and postures.