CA-MAC: A Hybrid context-aware MAC protocol for wireless body area networks

Author

Bin Liu ; Zhisheng Yan ; Chang Wen Chen

Author_Institution

Sch. of Inf. Sci. & Technol., Univ. of Sci. & Technol. of China, Hefei, China

fYear

2011

fDate

13-15 June 2011

Firstpage

213

Lastpage

216

Abstract

In wireless body area network (WBAN), various data sources are generated by different type of sensors and transmitted to the master node, which may result in temporally different traffic loads. With time-varying channel caused by frequent body movement, transmitted data may also experience deep fading and packet loss. To meet the complex transmission requirements in WBAN, a traffic-aware and channel-aware MAC protocol is required. In this paper, we introduce CA-MAC, a context-aware MAC protocol using a hybrid of contention-based and TDMA-based approaches. A dynamic control mechanism is proposed to address fading channel by adaptively modifying MAC frame structure. Schedule-based and polling-based techniques are also used to manage periodic, bursty, and emergency traffic requirement. Simulation results confirm the advantage of CA-MAC on reliability over existing TDMA-based approach.

Keywords

body area networks; telecommunication traffic; time division multiple access; time-varying channels; wireless channels; CA-MAC; TDMA-based approach; channel-aware MAC protocol; contention-based approach; deep fading; dynamic control mechanism; emergency traffic requirement management; fading channel; frequent body movement; hybrid context-aware MAC protocol; master node; packet loss; polling-based technique; schedule-based technique; time-varying channel; traffic loads; traffic-aware MAC protocol; wireless body area network; Body area networks; Fading; Media Access Protocol; Sensors; Time division multiple access; Wireless communication; Wireless sensor networks; Context Aware; Hybrid; MAC; WBAN;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

e-Health Networking Applications and Services (Healthcom), 2011 13th IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Columbia, MO

Print_ISBN

978-1-61284-695-8

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-61284-696-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/HEALTH.2011.6026748

Filename

6026748