MEDCO: an efficient protocol for data compression in wireless body sensor network

Abstract

This paper introduces a new protocol named MEDCO for eMErgency Detection and COmpression, designed to minimize data transmission and optimize sensor energy usage in wireless body sensor networks. MEDCO operates in two stages. The first stage assesses the patient’s condition based on vital signs and compares it with the previous state to determine if the data should be transmitted to medical staff. Data is only sent if a change in the patient’s situation is detected. The second stage focuses on compressing the identified data using two algorithms: range and changed vital signs methods. The range method classifies patient readings into ranges based on the current health situation before compressing them. At the same time, the changed vital signs algorithm considers both current and previous situations during compression. Through simulations using actual patient data, we demonstrated the effectiveness of our protocol in reducing data transmission by 97% while maintaining a high level of accuracy in the transmitted information. The range method outperforms by achieving an additional data reduction of 34.6% compared to the selected protocol from state of the art, and the changed vital signs method achieves a reduction of 6.4%.