LATOR: Link-Quality Aware and Thermal Aware On-Demand Routing Protocol for WBAN

Abstract

This paper presents the Link-Quality Aware and Thermal Aware On-Demand Routing (LATOR) protocol, a proposal for routing in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN). LATOR improves Packet Delivery Rate (PDR) in intra-WBAN communication with node overheating prevention. This protocol avoids overheating considering only each node's temperature without exchanging temperature information between neighboring nodes, which allows a decrease in control traffic. LATOR also considers route selection based on Link Quality Information (LQI). Initially the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) was considered as LQI. The proposal was implemented and evaluated using the Castalia framework over the OMNET++ simulator. Experimental results show that LATOR allows better PDR performance, especially when the direct communication presents low quality and there is an alternative path with better quality. At the same time, overheating in the network is avoided and PDR adequate performance is maintained. Although LATOR increases end-to-end latency, it can be considered a viable alternative for WBANs applications.