An Efficient QoS-Based Multi-Path Routing Scheme for Smart Healthcare Monitoring in Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) is a specialized field with applications both in medical and non-medical domains. In WBAN, nodes' (both wearable and implanted) may vary in capa-bilities, hence, carrying data at various rates. Propagating such data reliably and efficiently is challenging and results in increased delay and poor service. In sensitive healthcare monitoring applications, communicating sensitive data reliably with less delay is highly desirable. In WBANs, unwanted traffic is often generated, which wastes network bandwidth and causes delay. To address this issue, in this paper, we have proposed an efficient QoS-based Multi-Path Routing (MPR) scheme for WBAN. In MPR, the incoming traffic is categorized into normal and emergency. Emergency traffic has been given high priority and routed on the best path within the network that improves the reliability and throughput of a WBAN. The proposed scheme out-performs state-of-the-art approaches in terms of energy efficiency, network throughput, packet drop ratio, packet delivery ratio, and end-to-end delay. For 1000 data packets, collecting eight bio-sensor nodes yields a maximum throughput of 11,000 packets transmitted, and successively, in 10000 data collecting, with less packet drop ratio to the MS (Medical Server). Lastly, a fuzzy logic-based evaluation of the proposed scheme further testifies that the proposed work out-performs state-of-the-art approaches.

Automated summary

This paper proposes an efficient QoS-based Multi-Path Routing (MPR) scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs), which addresses the issues of unnecessary traffic and delay. By categorizing incoming traffic into normal and emergency types, and routing emergency traffic on the best path within the network, the proposed scheme improves the reliability and throughput of WBANs. This scheme outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in terms of energy efficiency, network throughput, packet drop ratio, packet delivery ratio, and end-to-end delay.