Heartbeat driven medium access control for body sensor networks

ABSTRACT

H-MAC is a novel Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) based MAC protocol designed for Body Sensor Networks (BSNs). It improves energy efficiency by exploiting human heartbeat rhythm information to perform time synchronization for TDMA. Heartbeat rhythm is inherent in every human body and can be detected in a variety of biosignals. Therefore, biosensors in BSNs can extract the heartbeat rhythm from their sensory data. Moreover, all the rhythms represented by peak sequences are naturally synchronized since they are driven by the same source, the heartbeat. By following the rhythm, wireless biosensors can achieve time synchronization without having to turn on their radio to receive periodic timing information from a central controller, so that energy cost for time synchronization can be completely avoided and the lifetime of network can be prolonged. An active synchronization recovery scheme is also developed, in which two resynchronization procedures are implemented. The algorithms are verified using real world data from MIT-BIH multi-parameter database MIMIC.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.1 Network Architecture and Design
          Subjects: Wireless communication

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Experimentation

Keywords:
MAC, body sensor networks (BSNs), energy efficiency, time division multiple access (TDMA)