QoS-aware superframe management scheme based on IEEE 802.15.6

This paper propose how to manage superframe of MAC protocol based on IEEE 802.15.6 with considering quality of service (QoS) of wireless body area network (WBAN) applications. In recent years, WBAN technology which can monitor vital information of patient with wearable device is receiving attention because of aging society problem. But, WBAN supports wide range of application such a military application, consumer electronics and so forth. Then we should consider QoS (Quality of Service) of them. In this paper, we focus on superframe based MAC protocol in IEEE 802.15.6 which is one of the international WBAN standard. The standard does not mention about how to utilize each channel access method in superframe, then we proposed superframe management scheme according to application requirements. By introducing packet indication which is proposal MAC header, medical nodes can be allocated dedicated slot by coordinator without stochastic process in order to increase communication reliability. Hence, we improved non-medical node's channel access probability by using modified contention window size of CSMA/CA. Proposal method is evaluated by simulation analysis. The results indicate that proposal method can guarantee worst latency of medical traffic and improve mean delay time of non-medical traffic.