On-demand data forwarding for automatic adaptation of data propagation in WBANs

Practical experience reveals the characteristic properties of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs), signifying the need for a well-designed communication protocol. High mobility, stringent resource constraints, and low and time-variant quality of wireless links are some of the challenging issues in WBANs. Typical applications further have varying Quality-of-Service requirements and demand reliable and fast data transmission at low energy cost. This paper proposes a simple, robust, and optimized protocol for data propagation in WBANs. A hybrid design approach is proposed that automatically adapts the network topology according to the connectivity status of the network. An on-demand data forwarding mechanism combined with an epidemic data propagation strategy realize a proper data delivery and robustness while minimizing the idle listening and unnecessary data forwarding. Several experiments using wireless sensor nodes deployed on a body reveal how this protocol can automatically adapt the network in different situations. The results confirm the robustness and improved behavior of this protocol in comparison with existing fixed protocol architectures.