Study on Topology Control in Body Area Network

Abstract

Body Area Networks (BANs) are considered as the key building blocks for the emerging application of upcoming generation of networks that would be extended towards the wearable technology as well as the Internet of Things. Starting from the traditional network scenarios to today's advanced network infrastructure, BANs have played a very significant role in developing the computer network industry and specifically the medical sector as well. This paper/ article describe several composite research-based approaches for Topology Control (TC) for BANs while considering the network performance. TC considered being major network parameters that profoundly influence different network metrics including the network traffic. Also we discuss on different BAN topologies that should be selected according to the foreseen medical application and the deployment environment. TC techniques have been widely used in Wireless Sensor Network (BANs are one kind of sensor network) so as to reduce the energy consumption, to extend the network operational time, to reduce radio interference and to prove a positive effect on the network traffic carrying capacity etc. In this paper, we also state several problems that are related to the topology control particularly in BANs environment and outline how TC largely influences several parameters on network performances. Our survey also explains about how TC techniques can be intelligently used to enhance and increase the network performance in BANs according to relevant medical application.