Multipath routing boosts patient mobility and energy use in body sensor networks
Mobility Enhancement of Patients Body Monitoring based on WBAN with Multipath Routing
Networking and Internet Architecture
Summary
Monitoring patients in hospitals with small wireless sensors is helpful but can limit patients' movement because the sensors have short ranges to save battery. The authors suggest using a special network setup called ad hoc mode and a routing method that sends data through multiple paths to keep data flowing as patients move. Their tests show this approach reduces delays and saves energy while improving how much data gets through and how long the network lasts. However, it also increases the network's management work.
What this means in practice
- •For hospital it teams: Implement patient monitoring systems that support mobility and reduce energy use with multipath routing and ad hoc network setup.
- •For home healthcare device makers: Design wearable health monitoring devices that maintain reliable data transmission while allowing patient movement through multipath communication.
Authors
Yasna Ghanbari Birgani, Nastooh Taheri Javan, Mohsen Tourani
Abstract
One of the promising applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is monitoring of the human body for health concerns. For this purpose, a large number of small sensors are implanted in the human body. These sensors altogether provide a network of wireless sensors (WBANs) and monitor the vital signs and signals of the human body; these sensors will then send this information to the doctor. The most important application of the WBAN is the implementation of the monitoring network for patient safety in the hospital environment. In this case, supporting patients' mobility is one of the basic needs, which has been underestimated in recent studies. The problem that involves providing the required energy for the units used in this type of network is challenging; for this reason, sent/received units with very low power consumption and with a very small radius are used in order to save energy. The resulting small sending range leads to the lack of support for patients' mobility. In this paper, the ad hoc mode is suggested for use to establish a network and a multipath routing algorithm for the purpose of supporting patients' mobility in a hospital setting. The results of the simulation show that, in addition to supporting patients' mobility, the use of the proposed idea instead of previously presented protocols reduces delays in data transmission and energy consumption; it also increases the delivery rate depending on the destination and the lifetime of the network, while increasing routing overhead.