Hotspot Preventing Routing Algorithm for Delay-Sensitive Biomedical Sensor Networks

Networks of implanted biomedical sensor nodes promise to give a new direction to medical research. Implanted biosensor nodes are already being used for various medical applications. The in-vivo sensor nodes collect the desired biometric data and communicate the data wirelessly among themselves and with a base station located outside the body. The sensor nodes are equipped with radio transmitters and receivers and hence produce heat while communicating, leading to a rise in the temperature of the nodes. A high temperature of the in-vivo nodes for a prolonged period might damage the surrounding tissues. So a considerable rise in the temperature of the nodes is not desired. For certain delay-sensitive medical applications a large delay in communicating the sensed information to the base-station might also be fatal. In this paper, we propose hotspot preventing routing (HPR) algorithm that reduces the average packet delivery delay in the network of biomedical sensor nodes while preventing the formation of hotspots. The proposed algorithm performs much better in terms of preventing the formation of hotspots and reducing the average packet delivery delay as compared to the shortest hop routing algorithm and the previously proposed thermal aware routing algorithm (TARA).