Design and implementation of energy-aware cross-layer routing protocol for wearable body area network

Abstract

Purpose A wireless body area network (WBAN) plays a crucial role in the health-care domain. With the emergence of technologies like the internet of things, there is increased usage of WBAN for providing quality health services. With wearable devices and sensors associated with human body, patient’s vital signs are captured and sent to doctor. The WBAN has number of sensor nodes that are resource constrained. The communications among the nodes are very crucial as human health information is exchanged. The purpose of this paper aims to have Quality of Service (QoS) with energy aware and control overhead aware. Maximizing network lifetime is also essential for the improved quality in services. There are many existing studies on QoS communications in WBAN. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, with the aim of energy-efficient WBAN for QoS, a cross-layer routing protocol is designed and implemented. A cross-layer routing protocol that is ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV)-based, energy and control overhead-aware (AODV-ECOA) is designed and implemented for energy-efficient routing in WBAN. The cross-layer design that involves multiple layers of open systems interconnection reference model, which will improve energy efficiency and thus QoS. Findings Implementation is simulated using the network simulator tool, i.e. NS-2. The proposed cross-layer routing protocol AODV-ECOA shows least bandwidth requirement by control packets, leading to less control overhead, highest packet delivery ratio and energy efficiency. The experimental results revealed that AODV-ECOA shows better performance over existing protocols such as AODV and POLITIC. Originality/value An efficient control overhead reduction algorithm is proposed for reducing energy consumption further and improves performance of WBAN communications to realize desired QoS.