Analyzing Delay in Wireless Multi-hop Heterogeneous Body Area Networks

Abstract

With increase in ageing population, health care market keeps growing. There is a need for monitoring of health issues. Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) consists of wireless sensors attached on or inside human body for monitoring vital health related problems e.g., Electro Cardiogram (ECG), Electro Encephalogram (EEG), Electrony Stagmography (ENG) etc. Due to life threatening situations, timely sending of data is essential. For data to reach health care center, there must be a proper way of sending data through reliable connection and with minimum delay. In this study transmission delay of different paths, through which data is sent from sensor to health care center over heterogeneous multi-hop wireless channel is analyzed. Data of medical related diseases is sent through three different paths. In all three paths, data from sensors first reaches ZigBee, which is the common link in all three paths. Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) are connected with ZigBee. Each network (WLAN, WiMAX, UMTS) is setup according to environmental conditions, suitability of device and availability of structure for that device. Data from these networks is sent to IP-Cloud, which is further connected to health care center. Delay of data reaching each device is calculated and represented graphically. Main aim of this study is to calculate delay of each link in each path over multi-hop wireless channel.