Synchronization methods for Bluetooth based WBANs

Abstract

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) can take advantage of many wireless protocols. Among them, Bluetooth is a good candidate since its widespread adoption guarantees compatibility with a number of devices and significantly reduces development time. In most cases data collected from different sensors on different nodes need to be synchronized. We present a synchronization protocol that makes use of Bluetooth piconet internal clock to achieve near-millisecond accuracy with minimal radio communication overhead. Experimental results show that Bluetooth low power modes does not affect negatively accuracy, but improves it, obtaining less power consumption and higher synchronization accuracy.