Hybrid Unified-Slot Access Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks

摘要

Wireless body area network (WBAN) solution is an emerging new technology to resolve the small area connection issues around human body, especially for the medical applications. Based on the integrated superframe structure of IEEE 802.15.4, a modified medium access control (MAC) protocol, named Hybrid Unified-slot Access (HUA) protocol for WBANs is proposed with focus on the simplicity, dependability and power efficiency. Considering the support to multiple physical layer (PHY) technologies including ultra-wide band (UWB), the slotted ALOHA is employed in the contention access period (CAP) to request the slot allocation. Mini-slot method is designed to enhance the efficiency of the contention. Moreover, sufficient slot allocation in the contention-free period (CFP) makes HUA adaptive to the different traffic including the medical and non-medical applications. Simulation results show that the protocol effectively decreases the probability of collision in a CAP and extends the CFP slots to support more traffic with quality of service (QoS) guarantee.