PNP-MAC: Preemptive Slot Allocation and Non-Preemptive Transmission for Providing QoS in Body Area Networks

One of the most important and yet most challenging issues in body area networks (BANs) is to provide diverse quality of service (QoS). Most physiological data monitoring applications require low rate periodic reporting while real-time entertainment applications require high rate continuous streaming. Emergency alarm, the most time-critical but unpredictable data, must be delivered instantaneously. A BAN should satisfy these diverse requirements since applications each with distinctive QoS requirement may run simultaneously. We propose PNP-MAC protocol that can flexibly handle variety of applications with diverse requirements through fast, preemptive slot allocation, non-preemptive transmission in the allocated slots, and flexible superframe adjustments. Performance evaluation using OPNET network simulator shows that PNP-MAC can satisfy diverse delay and throughput requirements of various applications such as continuous streaming, routine periodic monitoring, and time-critical emergency alarm.