MAC Protocols for Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks: A Comparative Review

摘要

The growing cost of healthcare and the increase in the aging population have posed great challenges to reliable and efficient provision of healthcare services by governments, healthcare providers, and the healthcare industry. Advances in electronics, wireless communication, and integrated circuits have enabled the development of small low-power sensors and actuators that can be placed on, in, or around the human body. A wireless body area sensor network (WBASN) can be effectively used for delivering the sensed data to a central server, where data can be monitored, stored, and analyzed. WBASNs have the potential to significantly improve healthcare delivery, diagnostic monitoring, and other medical procedures. Unlike other wireless networks, WBASNs have specific requirements, but existing protocols such as IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.4 cannot fulfill these requirements. To address the different requirements of WBASNs, many medium access control (MAC) protocols have been proposed. Most MAC protocols are derived from the IEEE 802.15.4 superframe structure with some improvements and adjustments to address the stringent requirements of WBASNs effectively. This paper reviews the recent advances and developments of MAC protocols in WBASNs. The MAC protocols are qualitatively compared with each other, and challenging open research issues are also discussed.