Energy efficient routing protocols in wireless body area networks for health monitoring: a review

Abstract

Technology nowadays is developing at an unprecedented pace in the field of wireless sensor networks (WSN). Especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, wireless body area networks (WBAN), which is a sub-category of WSN, experiences huge prominence, due to its functionality to enable remote diagnosis, treatment, and constant monitoring for patients. This functionality is a great advantage, since it allows elderly people, people with chronical diseases and even emergency cases to be monitored in real-time and, if needed, also enabling timely interventions. Furthermore, it is very cost-efficient since it reduces the occupation of hospital beds, whilst also keeping patients safer. This is possible by deploying small sensors within or around the body, where they can gather physiological data, which then at the end is send to medical terminals, where medical staff have access to them. However, a WBAN, due to its small size, is constricted by several factors. Energy consumption, security, data transmission, as well as heat generation are only a few to be named. To deal with these challenges, whilst enabling a stable communication between the components, routing protocols are required. There are many different routing protocols which are used depending on the application being used.