Analysis of Weighting and Network Selection Methods for Vertical Handoff in Wireless Body Area Network

Seamless handoff is crucial for wireless body area network (WBAN) data’s transmission, it may avoid the death resulted from sudden diseases, especially for the elder people who suffer from chronic diseases. Therefore, a vertical handoff algorithm that conforms to the characteristics of body area network is urgent. Different from the traditional service types in telecommunications, service types in wireless body area network have their own characteristics. How to reasonably divide these service types according to their requirement of the internet is very important. In addition, we need to study the rationality of different weighting and network selection algorithms for body area network users. In view of the lack of vertical handoff algorithms to meet the characteristics of wireless body area networks, this paper first analyzes the service types in body area network, and reasonably divides the service types in body area network into four types. For these four services types, we comprehensively and systematically analyze the weight determination and network selection algorithms suitable for them. In addition, in wireless body area network environment, there may be situations when multiple users need to transmit information at the same time. For these situations, we propose a broadcast mechanism to prevent network congestion caused by group switching. The simulation results show that the combination of using Analytic hierarchy process to determine the weight and using Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution as the network selection method is most suitable for vertical handoff in WBAN. The proposed broadcast mechanism can solve the network congestion problem caused by group handoff.