Delay Analysis of ARQ Protocol for
Energy-efficient Transmission in WBAN
Nattakorn Promwongsa
Telecommunications Field of Study
Asian Institute of Technology
Pathumthani, Thailand
Email: nattakorn.pws@gmail.com
Abstract—Due to its highly potential applications in the health-
care and medical fields, Wireless Body Area Network(WBAN)
has been attracted from many researches in recent years. In
WBANs, an energy efficiency is still a challenging issue. In
our previous work [5], we investigated the energy efficiency
models of 1-hop and cooperative communications further in
multipath fading and proposed the energy efficiency model of
2-hop communication. However, the average end-to-end delay
has not been explored. In this paper, we simulate the average
end-to-end delay of a S-D pair of the energy-efficient 1-hop,
cooperative and 2-hop communications in multipath fading. The
Automatic Repeat Request(ARQ) protocol with the utilization
of stop-and-wait mechanism is adopted here. The Binary Phase
Shift Keying(BPSK) is used in line-of-sight(LOS) and non-line-
of-sight(NLOS) on-body channels while 16-ary Quadrature Am-
plitude Position Modulation(QAPM) is used to support the high
data rate applications in in-body channel. The simulation results
show that cooperative communication achieves the lowest average
end-to-end delay regardless of any S-D distances. However, when
the S-D distance is long sufficiently, the average end-to-end delays
of cooperative and 2-hop communications are approximately the
same. Furthermore, the average end-to-end delay in case of
varying the transmission power is also investigated. It is shown
that increasing the transmission power significantly improves the
average end-to-end delay, especially in in-body channel.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Wireless Body Area Network(WBAN) is a short-range wire-
less communication and has a lot of promising applications in
the healthcare and medical fields. In general, WBAN nodes can
be divided into three groups: (i) Sensing nodes which consist
of wearable [1] and implanted nodes [2]. (ii) Coordinator or
hub node. (iii) Access point or monitoring station. Typically,
the communication types of WBAN can be classified into on-
body and in-body channels. On-body channel is a communi-
cation between wearable and outside coordinator nodes while
in-body channel is a communication between implanted and
outside coordinator nodes. Due to many advantages of WBAN
applications, IEEE 802.15.6 [3] was established as general
standard for WBANs.
Many applications in WBANs require a strict delay, es-
pecially in the medical field such as an emergency call
application [1] and a wireless capsule endoscopy application
[2]. Moreover, an energy efficiency is still a challenging issue
that has to be addressed as well in WBANs [4] [5].
c
978-1-5090-5124-3/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE
978-1-5090-5124-3/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Teerapat Sanguankotchakorn
Telecommunications Field of Study
Asian Institute of Technology
Pathumthani, Thailand
Email: teerapat@ait.ac.th
In [4], the energy efficiency of ARQ protocol for 1-hop and
cooperative communications are proposed to select the energy-
efficient packet size in WBANs. Later, in [5], we investigate
the energy efficiency of 1-hop and cooperative communica-
tions further in fading environment. Also, the energy efficiency
of 2-hop communication is proposed here [5]. However, in [4]
and [5], the performance of the average end-to-end delay has
not been investigated yet.
In this paper, we simulate the average end-to-end delay
of energy-efficient 1-hop, cooperative and 2-hop communi-
cations in multipath fading. For ARQ protocol, stop-and-wait
mechanism is adopted, and one sender and one receiver is
considered. In addition, BPSK is used in LOS and NLOS
on-body channels while 16QAPM [6] is used in in-body
channel. According to the simulation results, it is shown
that the average end-to-end delays of 2-hop and cooperative
communications slightly increase with the increment of the
S-D distance compared to 1-hop communication in LOS and
NLOS on-body channels. Moreover, they provide the average
end-to-end delay less than 0.5 s within a S-D distance of 240
cm in LOS on-body and 0.6 s within a S-D distance of 40
cm in NLOS on-body channels for transmitting 200 kbits.
In contrast, 1-hop communication achieves up to only S-D
distances of 150 cm in LOS on-body and 23 cm in NLOS
on-body channels. In in-body channel, due to poor channel
conditions, the average end-to-end delays of all scenarios
increase rapidly when the S-D distance is extended. The 2-hop
and cooperative communications provide the average end-to-
end delay of approximately 75 s to transmit 6.4 Mbits at a
S-D distance of 15 cm, which is long enough to support the
entire hop-length of a wireless capsule endoscopy application.
Moreover, we also investigate the average end-to-end delay by
varying the transmission power, given that it does not violate
a biological safety. It is observed that the average end-to-end
delay of all scenarios can reduce to such a small value as 5
s, which can properly support the wireless capsule endoscopy
application in in-body channel.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: in
Section II, channel model is briefly explained. The delay
analysis of 1-hop, cooperative and 2-hop communications is
described in Section III. In Section IV, simulation results and
discussion are demonstrated. Finally, we conclude this paper
18 ICOIN 2017
in Section V.

II. CHANNEL MODEL

The path loss between a transmitter and a receiver with a

distance d in WBANs is very high compared to the path loss
in free space. In [7], the mathematical form of the path loss
model in WBANs is proposed as a function of the distance d (a) Event 1
and can be expressed as

d
PL(d)(dB) = PL0 + 10nlog + Xσ (1)
d0

where PL0 is the path loss at a reference distance d0 . n is the

path-loss exponent. Xσ is the shadowing component which is
a Gaussian distributed random variable with zero mean and
standard deviation σ in dB. (b) Event 2
In addition, multipath fading can be ignored in WBANs. Fig. 1. The failure of transmission of cooperative communication.
In [8] and [9], it is found clearly that multipath fading has
an impact on WBANs. Therefore, in our work, flat and
slow fading channel is considered because it is assumed that
user’s speed is low. In LOS and NLOS on-body channels,
multipath fading is modeled by using Rician distribution [8]
with different K factor while in-body channel, multipath fading
is modeled by using Rayleigh distribution.

III. DELAY ANALYSIS

In this Section, we analyze the average end-to-end delay(τ )

of one transmitter and one receiver which is defined as the time
spent on transmitting all packets from source to destination
nodes. Three communication schemes are considered here,
namely 1-hop, 2-hop and cooperative communications. For 2-
hop and cooperative communications, relay node is located
in midway between source and destination nodes since this
location provides the maximum energy efficiency [4]. Also,
it is the same type as source node. The ARQ protocol with
the utilization of stop-and-wait mechanism is adopted. In this Fig. 2. The flowchart for computing the average end-to-end delay of
cooperative communication.
mechanism, when transmission is successful, the destination
node sends an ACK message back to the source node for
requesting a sequent packet. Also, retransmission of any A. 1-hop communication
packets will be made only when the destination node sends a
NACK message back to the source node. In case of cooperative For 1-hop communication, the time spent on transmitting
and 2-hop communications, the ACK and NACK messages are any packet until the next packet is transmitted(Tsuccess ) and
broadcasted to both relay and source nodes to require the same the time spent on waiting for a retransmission of the same
or next packet. The assumptions of this work are as follows: packet due to the failure of transmission(Tf ailure ) can be
computed simply and expressed as
• The path of any transmission has been established.
• The source node always has packets to transmit. Tsuccess = Tf ailure = Tk,data + Tack/nack + Tp (2)
• The transmission of ACK and NCK messages is error-
where Tk,data = (Sk + H)/R is the time to transmit k th
free because their size is very small, and the destination
packet where S is the payload size, H is the header size
node is generally located outside human body, so the
and R is the data rate. In this work, the payload size can
transmission power can be adjusted to accomplish the
be obtained in [5] for achieving the maximum energy effi-
transmission simply.
ciency. Tack/nack = Hack/nack /R is the delay of ACK/NACK
• The propagation delay is negligible because of a short-
message where Hack/nack is the packet size of ACK/NACK
range wireless communication.
message. Tp is the propagation delay which is set to be zero.

19

(a) Event 1
(b) Event 2
Fig. 3. The failure of transmission of 2-hop communication.
Fig. 4. The flowchart for computing the average end-to-end delay of 2-hop
communication.
B. Cooperative communication
For simulating the average end-to-end delay of cooperative
communication, many events have to be considered. First, we
consider the events of successful packet transmission which
can be divided into two events. The first event is the successful
transmission from source to destination nodes. The TE1 ,success
of this event can be expressed as
TE1 ,success = Tk,data + Tack + Tp
The second event is the failure of transmission from source
to destination nodes, and the successful transmission from
source to relay nodes and from relay to destination nodes.
The TE2 ,success of this event can be represented as
TE2 ,success = 2Tk,data + Tack + Tp
Next, we consider the time spent on waiting for a re-
transmission due to the failure of transmission. In this case,
two events are considered. The first event is the failure of
transmission from source to destination and relay nodes as
shown in Fig.1. The TE1 ,f ailure of this event can be computed
by
TE1 ,f ailure = 2Tk,data + Tnack + Tp (5)
The second event is the failure of transmission from source
to destination nodes, the successful transmission from source
to relay nodes and the failure of transmission from relay to
destination nodes as shown in Fig.1. The initial time spent on
waiting for the first retransmission in this event is 2Tk,data +
Tnack + Tp . Then, the next TE2 ,f ailure is given by
TE2 ,f ailure = Tk,data + Tnack + Tp (6)
The flowchart for simulating the average end-to-end delay
of cooperative communication is illustrated in Fig. 2.
C. 2-hop communication
In this Subsection, we analyze the average end-to-end delay
of 2-hop communication. Similar to cooperative communi-
cation, we firstly consider the event of successful packet
transmission which happens only when transmissions from
source to relay nodes and from relay to destination nodes are
successful. The Tsuccess of this event is given by
Tsuccess = 2Tk,data + Tack + Tp (7)
In case of the failure of transmission, two events are
considered as shown in Fig.3. The TE1 ,f ailure and TE2 ,f ailure
of 2-hop communication are equivalent to the Event 1 and
Event 2 of cooperative communication, respectively. The
flowchart for simulating the average end-to-end delay of 2-
hop communication is illustrated in Fig.4.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this Section, we simulate the average end-to-end delays
of energy-efficient 1-hop, cooperative and 2-hop communica-
tions in multipath fading [5] compared to the typical 1-hop
communication whose payload size is set to be the maximum
payload size(Smax ). In order to avoid an infinite loop of
the retransmission due to extremely poor channel conditions,
we terminate the transmission and set the average end-to-
end delay to be infinity when the number of retransmissions
exceeds 100 times. All parameters used for simulation are
given in Table I and II.
A. Average End-to-End Delay Vs S-D Distance
In WBAN, the transmission power is one factor that has to
be selected appropriately due to interference and a biological
(3)
safety. According to IEEE 802.15.6 standard [3], in the fre-
quency band from 402 to 405 MHz associated with in-body
channel, the maximum transmission power should not exceed
-16 dBm. In addition, at the centre frequency of 2.45 GHz,
LOS on-body channel, it should be at least -10 dBm while at
the centre frequency of 3.1 GHz, NLOS on-body channel, it
(4) should satisfy local regulations. Therefore, in this Subsection,
20
 TABLE I
PARAMETER VALUES

Parameter Value
The maximum payload size(Smax ) 2000 bits
Header/ACK size 80/64 bits
Transmission power(Pt ) On-body/In-body : -10/-16 dBm
Noise power -180 dBW/Hz
On-body channel d0 : 10 cm,P L0 : 35.2 dB,n: 3.11
with LOS ,σ: 6.1 dB,f: 2.45 GHz
On-body channel d0 : 10 cm,P L0 : 48.4 dB,n: 5.9
with NLOS ,σ: 5.0 dB,f: 3.1 GHz
In-body channel d0 : 5 cm,P L0 : 49.81 dB,n: 4.22
,σ: 6.81dB,f: 402 to 405 MHz
Fig. 6. The average end-to-end delay Vs. S-D distance in NLOS on-body
Data Rate(R) On-body/In-body : 2/1 M symbol/s channel for BPSK for transmitting 200 kbits at Pt = -10 dBm.

TABLE II
FADING PARAMETERS
Channel model Rician [8] Rayleigh
K(dB) Ω Ω
LOS on-body 24.7 1 -
NLOS on-body 9.3 1.03 -
In-body - - 2 when the S-D distance is large because it acts as 2-hop
Fig. 5. The average end-to-end delay Vs. S-D distance in LOS on-body
channel for BPSK for transmitting 200 kbits at Pt = -10 dBm.
we consider the transmission power in in-body channel at -16
dBm, and LOS and NLOS on-body channels at -10 dBm.
The number of transmitted bits in LOS and NLOS on-
body channels is set to be 200 kbits, which is sufficient to
accommodate on-body information such as blood pressure and
heart rate. The modulation technique used in these channels
is BPSK. In case of in-body channel, it is set to be 6.4
Mbits, which is approximately the size of 5 still images. Also,
16QAPM is utilized to support high data rate applications.
Since for 16QAPM, the power of each symbol is not equal,
so the maximum power of those symbols is set to be the
transmission power.
The average end-to-end delays in LOS and NLOS on-body
channels are illustrated in Fig. 5 and 6, respectively. It is shown
that the average end-to-end delays of energy-efficient 2-hop
and cooperative communications are lower than 0.5 s within
a S-D distance of 240 cm in LOS on-body channel and 0.6
s within a S-D distance of 40 cm in NLOS on-body channel.
Also, they slightly increase when the S-D distance increases.
The cooperative communication provides the lowest average
end-to-end delay. However, it does not provide the maximum
energy efficiency [5] and is close to 2-hop communication
communication. In case of the energy-efficient and typical
1-hop communications, the average end-to-end delays rise
considerably when the S-D distance increases. In LOS on-
body channel, within the average end-to-end delay of 0.5 s, the
energy-efficient and typical 1-hop communications can operate
up to S-D distances of only 150 and 170 cm, respectively.
Also, in NLOS on-body channel, within the average end-to-
end delay of 0.6 s, they both can do approximately up to a
S-D distance of only 23 cm.
Due to the high path loss and impact of multipath fading
in in-body channel, the average end-to-end delays of all
scenarios rise significantly when the S-D distance is extended
as shown in Fig. 7. The energy-efficient cooperative and 2-hop
communications achieve the average end-to-end delay lower
than 75 s within a S-D distance of 15 cm, whereas within
this average end-to-end delay, the energy-efficient and typical
1-hop communications cannot operate when the S-D distance
is greater than roughly 9.5 cm for the energy-efficient one
and 6.5 cm for the typical one. In in-body channel, the enery-
efficient 1-hop communication is superior to the typical one
in terms of both energy efficiency [5] and average end-to-end
delay for the entire S-D distances.
B. Average End-to-End Delay Vs Transmission Power
As shown in the previous Subsection, it is observed that the
average end-to-end delay may not be small enough to support
WBAN applications, especially in in-body channel. Also, in
the previous Subsection, the transmission power is selected
to comply with IEEE 802.15.6 standard. However, if we in-
crease the transmission power based on only biological safety
considerations, the average end-to-end delay is anticipated to
be improved. According to [2], the maximum transmission
power can increase up to 13 dBm without damaging any 10
g human tissue. As a result, in this Subsection, we investigate

21
Fig. 7. The average end-to-end delay Vs. S-D distance in in-body channel
for 16QAPM for transmitting 6.4 Mbits at Pt = -16 dBm.
Fig. 8. The average end-to-end delay Vs. transmission power in NLOS on-
body channel for BPSK for transmitting 200 kbits.
Fig. 9. The average end-to-end delay Vs. transmission power in in-body
channel for 16QAPM for transmitting 6.4 Mbits.
the average end-to-end delays of all scenarios by varying the
transmission power.
First, we consider LOS and NLOS on-body cases. In LOS
on-body channel, the S-D distance is set to be 200 cm because
this distance is long enough to support all WBAN applications
when the coordinator node is located in the centre human
body, such as belly. While in NLOS on-body channel, due
to the high path loss and impact of multipath fading, it is set
to be only 40 cm. Here, the result of LOS on-body case is not
illustrated because this channel is quite good, so the average
22
Fig. 10. The average end-to-end delay Vs. transmitted bits in in-body channel
for 16QAPM at S-D distance of 15 cm at Pt = 13 dBm .
end-to-end delay is not improved significantly by increasing
the transmission power. In case of NLOS on-body channel as
shown in Fig.8, it is clear that increasing the transmission
power can improve the average end-to-end delay. At the
maximum transmission power of 13 dBm, the average end-to-
end delays of 2-hop and cooperative communications reduce
by approximately 60% and 76%, respectively, compared to the
previous Subsection. Moreover, in case of the energy-efficient
and typical 1-hop communications, the average end-to-end
delay drops significantly by approximately 100 %.
Next, we focus on in-body case. A wireless capsule en-
doscopy, which is one of typical in-body applications is always
operated within a S-D distance of 15 cm [2]. Thus, in in-
body channel, the S-D distance is set to be 15 cm. The
average end-to-end delay with varying the transmission power
in this channel is plotted in Fig.9. We can see that in in-body
channel, the average end-to-end delays of all scenarios are
considerably improved when the transmission power increases.
By increasing the transmission power up to 13 dBm, the
average end-to-end for transmitting 6.4 Mbits is less than only
roughly 5 s for all scenarios. In contrast with the previous
Subsection, by using the transmission power of -16 dBm, we
suffer from extremely high average end-to-end delay of at least
70 s at this S-D distance.
Moreover, the average end-to-end delay for the transmission
power of 13 dBm at a S-D distance of 15 cm versus the
various number of transmitted bits in in-body channel is also
investigated and illustrated in Fig10. It implies that we can
send approximately 17 still images within only 14 s for any
scenarios.
V. CONCLUSION
In this work, we simulate the average end-to-end delay of
ARQ protocol with the utilization of stop-and-wait mechanism
in fading environment. The energy-efficient 1-hop, cooperative
and 2-hop communications are considered. Regarding modula-
tion techniques, BPSK is used to support WBAN applications
in LOS and NLOS on-body channels while 16QAPM is used
in in-body channel.
The simulation of the average end-to-end delay is carried
out versus various S-D distances. It is clear that coopera-
tive communication provides the lowest average end-to-end
delay regardless of any hop-lengths in all WBAN channels.
However, when the hop-length is extended sufficiently, 2-hop
communication does not only provide the average end-to-end
delay close to cooperative communication, but also achieves
the maximum energy efficiency, as shown in our previous
work [5]. In addition, the transmission power selected based
on only biological safety considerations is also explored. It
is found that the average end-to-end delay can be improved
significantly by increasing the transmission power, especially
in in-body channel.
R EFERENCES
[1] N.F. Timmons and W.G. Scanlon., An adaptive energy efficient MAC
protocol for the medical body area network, 1st International Conference
in Wireless Communication, Vehicular Technology, Information Theory,
Aerospace system and Electronic Systems Technology(Wireless VITAE
2009), pp.587-593.
[2] S. Jingjing, T. Yuki, A. Daisuke and W. Jianqing., Performance evaluation
and link Budget analysis on dual-mode communication system in Body
Area Networks, IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications 2014, vol.
E97-B, no.6, pp. 1175-1183.
[3] IEEE 802.15 WPAN Task Group 6 Body Area Networks (WBAN),
http://www.ieee802.org/15/pub/TG6.html.
[4] K.S. Deepak and A.V. Babu., Packet size optimization for energy effi-
cient cooperative Wireless Body Area Networks, Annual IEEE in India
Conference(INDICON) 2012, pp.736-741.
[5] N. Promwongsa and T. Sanguankotchakorn , Packet size optimization for
energy-efficient 2-hop in multipath fading for WBAN, 22nd Asia-Pacific
Conference on Communications (APCC) 2016, pp. 445-450.
[6] C Jae-Hoon and R Heung-Gyoon., A QAPM(Quadrature Amplitude
Position Modulation) for low power consumption communication, 6th
International Symposium in Wireless and Pervasive Computing(ISWPC)
2011, pp.1-4.
[7] KY. Yazdandoost and K. Sayrafian-Pour., Channel Model for Body Area
Network(BAN), IEEE P802.15-08-0780-09-0006, 2009.
[8] S.L. Cotton and W.G. Scanlon., A Statistical Analysis of Indoor Mul-
tipath Fading for a Narrowband Wireless Body Area Network, IEEE
17th International Symposium in Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio
Communications 2006, pp.1-5.
[9] Y.I. Nechayev, P.S. Hall, I. Khan and C.C. Constantinou., Wireless chan-
nels and antennas for body-area networks, Seventh International Con-
ference in Wireless On-demand Network Systems and Services (WONS)
2010, pp.137-144.

23