IEEE 802.15.6 Under Saturation: Some Problems to Be Expected

  • Rashwand, Saeed (Department of Computer Science University of Manitoba) ;
  • Misic, Jelena (Department of Computer Science Ryerson University) ;
  • Khazaei, Hamzeh (Department of Computer Science University of Manitoba)
  • Received : 2010.10.09
  • Published : 2011.04.30

Abstract

Because currently available wireless technologies are not appropriate for wireless body area networks (WBANs), the IEEE 802.15.6 standard was introduced by the IEEE 802.15.6 Task Group to satisfy all the requirements for a monitoring system that operates on, in, or around the human body. In this work, we develop an analytical model for evaluating the performance of an IEEE 802.15.6-based WBAN under saturation condition and a noisy channel. We employ a three-dimensional Markov chain to model the backoff procedure as specified in the standard. Probability generating functions (PGFs) are used to compute the performance descriptors of the network. The results obtained from the analytical model are validated by simulation results. Our results indicate that under saturation condition, the medium is accessed by the highest user priority nodes at the vast majority of time while the other nodes are starving.

Keywords

References

  1. G.-Z. Yang, Body Sensor Networks. London: Springer-Verlag, 2006.
  2. K. V. Dam, S. Pitchers, and M. Barnard, "Body area networks: Towards a wearable future," in Proc. WWRF, Munich, Germany, Mar. 2001.
  3. B. Latre, B. Braem, I. Moerman, C. Blondia, and P. Demeester, "A survey on wireless body area networks," accepted for publication in Wireless Netw..
  4. (2010). Bluetooth technology. [Online]. Available: http://www.bluetooth.com
  5. (2010). Zigbee alliance. [Online]. Available: http://www.zigbee.org/
  6. (2010). Wi-fi alliance. [Online]. Available: http://www.wi-fi.org/
  7. Wireless Body Area Network Draft Standard, IEEE Std. 802.15.6, 2010.
  8. (2010). Body area networks. IEEE 802.15 WPAN Task Group 6 (TG6). [Online]. Available: http://www.ieee802.org/15/pub/TG6.html
  9. E. Farella, A. Pieracci, L. Benini, and A. Acquaviva, "A wireless body area sensor network for posture detection," in Proc. ISCC, Washington, DC, USA, Sept. 2006, pp. 454-459.
  10. O. C. Omeni, O. Eljamaly, and A. J. Burdett, "Energy efficient medium access protocol for wireless medical body area sensor networks," in Proc. ISSS-MDBS, Cambridge, UK., Aug. 2007, pp. 29-32.
  11. H. Li and J. Tan, "Heartbeat driven medium access control for body sensor networks," in Proc. 1st ACM SIGMOBILE Int. Workshop Syst. Netw. Support for Healthcare and Assisted Living Environments, Puerto Rico, June, 2007, pp. 25-30.
  12. Y.-S. Seo, D.-Y. Kim, J. Cho, and B. Lee, "OCDP: AWBAN MAC protocol for contention-based medical and CE applications," in Proc. ICUIMC., Suwon, Korea, Jan. 2010.
  13. K. S. Kwak, M. A. Ameen, D. Kwak, C. Lee, and H. Lee, "A study on proposed IEEE 802.15 WBAN MAC protocols," in Proc. ICCI, Incheon, Korea, Sept. 2009, pp. 834-840.
  14. (2010). Maple 13, Maplesoft, Waterloo, Canada. [Online]. Available: http://www.maplesoft.com
  15. (2010). OpnetModeler, Opnet Technologies, Inc. Bethesda, MD. [Online]. Available: http://www.opnet.com/