2017 International Conference on Innovations in Information, Embedded and Communication Systems (ICIIECS)

A Survey on Energy Efficient Routing Protocols in

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN)
Ambily Kurian
PG Scholar: Communication Engineering Department
ASIET, Kalady, Affiliated to Kerala Technical University
Kerala, India
E-mail ID: ambilykurian93@gmail.com
Divya R
Asst. Professor: Electronics and Communication Dept.
ASIET, Kalady, Affiliated to Kerala Technical University
Kerala, India
E-mail id: divyar.ec@adishankara.ac.in

Abstract—Wireless body area network is a special purpose A. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and Wireless Body
wireless sensor network that employs wireless sensor nodes in, Area Network (WBAN)
on, or around the human body, and makes it possible to A WBAN is a communication network where a number
measure biological parameters of a person for special of sensor nodes are placed in, on or around the human body.
applications. One of the most fundamental concerns in wireless In order to make effective communication among these
body area networks is accurate routing in order to send data
sensor nodes, techniques that are used in wireless sensor
promptly and properly. Routing protocols used in wireless
body area networks are affected by a large number of factors networks can be adopted in WBAN. WBAN is an extended
including energy, topology, temperature, posture, radio range and new-founded research horizon of the WSN, based on its
of sensors and appropriate quality of service in sensor nodes. application, requirements, and implementations. The
Among these, achieving energy efficiency in wireless body area fundamental conceptual differences, between WSNs and
networks (WBANs) is a major challenge, because energy WBANs, from different aspects are enlisted in Table 1 [2]
efficiency ultimately affect the network lifetime. Several [3].
routing techniques have been adopted to increase the energy
efficiency. This paper aims to study wireless body area sensor Table 1: Comparison between WSN and WBAN
networks and the study of few energy efficient routing
protocols in WBAN.
Comparison WSN WBAN
Keywords— Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN), Routing, Criteria
Energy efficient routing protocols
Scale Meter/Kilometer Meter/Kilometer
I. INTRODUCTION
Topology Static/Dynamic Static/Dynamic
Wireless body area network is a special purpose wireless
Node Replacement Easy Difficult
sensor network and it defined by IEEE 802.15.6 as a
communication standard optimized for low power devices. Node Size Small Should be Small
The sensor nodes are placed in, on or around the human Size Preferred
body to serve a variety of applications in the field of
medical, consumer electronics/personal entertainment and Energy Scavenging Solar, Wind Motion, Body heat
others [1]. A wireless body area network (WBAN) consists
of number of sensor nodes and are equipped with a radio
interface. It continuously monitors the patient biological Number of nodes High Low
signals such as EEG, ECG signals, blood pressure, sugar
Power Demand Large Less
level, heart bit rate, body temperature and automatically
transmits these data to the hospital or the medical centre
where the medical officers or doctors will take the necessary
decision after observing all of these data. B. Architecture of WBAN
A WBAN connect independent body nodes by using a The Figure 1 illustrates the 3-tier architecture of WBAN.
central controller, known as Body Node Coordinator (BNC) The sensor nodes (N) will be deployed on the human body
or sink. The network typically extends over the whole body and the sensed data is given to the base station. The
and the nodes are connected through a wireless collected data can be used for various applications. The
communication channel. The data from the coordinator can architecture of WBANs can be separated into three different
be used for various applications such as sports area, tiers;
military, health-care system etc[2].

‹,(((
 2017 International Conference on Innovations in Information, Embedded and Communication Systems (ICIIECS)
• Tier-1: Intra-WBAN communication
• Tier-2: Inter-WBAN communication
• Tier-3: Beyond-WBAN communication
Figure 1: Architecture of WBAN
• Tier-1(Intra-WBAN): The sensor nodes will be
deployed in and around the human body. These
sensors send the sensed data to the base station.
Hence the design is a little bit difficult. The low
battery sensor nodes and personal device can be
directly connected to access point in order to
avoid bit rate and energy challenges [3, 4].
• Tier-2(Inter-WBAN): It aims to interconnect
WBANs and various networks. Here the base
station sends the received data to the sink.
Through this gateway, data can be passed from
the tier-1 to tier-3 [3].
• Tier-3(Beyond-WBAN): It is application
specific and the sink will send the collected
information to other destination via internet.
For keeping data of patients in healthcare
system tier-3 is used [3].
C. Challenges in WBAN
In WBANs there are many factors that are needed to be
taken into consideration. The major challenges faced by
WBAN are [4];
• Interoperability: To provide plug and play
interaction between devices, the data will have
to exchange across standards that is the data
from one standard transfer to another standard.
So the system would have to migrate from one
network to another network and during this
transfer the connectivity should not be
interrupted. In addition, the system must have
the capability to scale.
• Available power supply: Power consumption of
a WBAN is important since most or all sensor
nodes are battery powered. Replacing or
recharging in short intervals will be impractical.
• Security: Security issue of WBAN is always of
great importance. In sensor networks it is
especially important to have integrity and
authentication. Integrity means that the data at
the receiver is same as at the sender and has not
been accidentally or maliciously modified,
altered, or destroyed. Authentication, a
computer security concept, means to make
absolute sure that the sender really is who it
claims to be.
• Cost: To be able to compete in the international
market it is essential that the components are at
lowest possible price.
• Real time synchronization: The ability of the
network to transmit data, in real time and
without error, is one of the important issues of
WBANs. The time synchronization between
two sensor nodes of a WBAN need to work
seamlessly.
• Data consistency and management: A WBAN
deals with a heterogeneous environment where
a number of sensor nodes, having different data
transmission and processing capacity, generate
a large volume of data. Since these are directly
related to human body, it should be
confidential. WBANs should have such
procedure to manage this huge volume of data
by using some light data fusion techniques as
well as its consistency.
• Interference: Interference occurs when multiple
people wearing WBAN come into range of
each other. In this situation, the data from one
WBAN may be read by another WBAN.
D. Applications of WBAN
The WBAN is an emerging technology with an extended
range of potential and diverse application domains including
medical, military, safety and security, sports, social
networking and entertainments. All of these possible
applications are classified into two types: medical and non-
medical applications. The major applications are given in
the Table 2 [1]
 2017 International Conference on Innovations in Information, Embedded and Communication Systems (ICIIECS)

Table 2: Applications of WBAN capacity, energy and device lifetime of a WBAN node by
Medical Application Non-Medical Application using these limited resources [2].
• Remote control of • Gamming 3) Temperature awareness: Rise in temperature is an
Medical devices. applications. important issue in WBANs, which is mostly unconsidered in
• Bio-signal sensing • Smart key. Wireless Sensor Networks. Improvident temperature rise
in hospital and • Video streaming. may even cause a serious tissue damage which seems to be
outside hospital. • Entertainment harmful for human body. So, the routing protocol should be
• Patient monitoring. applications. temperature sensitive which not only detects the rise in
temperature but also prevents overheating problem [5].
4) Energy efficiency: In case of WBANs the power source
II. ROUTING IN WBAN
for the implanted sensors cannot be replaced. Energy
efficiency includes overall network lifetime as well as the
The core of communication networking system is the local energy consumption of nodes. Communication
routing protocol. A routing protocol is a controlling between the sensors consumes more energy in case of
mechanism of network system architecture. It is used to WBAN as compared to other networks. So energy
determine the specific choice of route from some available efficiency is an important issue.
ones by using the predefined rules and regulations. A
network consist of a number of nodes and each of these 5) Interference: Due to the limited transmission power of
nodes use the routing protocols to share their own transceiver of WBANs, interference with other transceivers
information or resources to enable the whole network using the same frequency bands increases. In order to reduce
workable [1]. this, interference cancellation mechanisms should be used in
the routing protocol.
A. Need of Routing Protocols in WBANs
WBAN is considered as a subset of WSNs. The motives III. ROUTING PROTOCOLS IN WBAN
for using a routing protocol in WBANs are described below
[1]: Routing protocols plays an important role in effective
• On-body and In-body networks exhibit communication among the nodes. The routing protocols find
heterogeneity because of placement constraints and out the best path for communicating with source and
sensor requirements. Wearability requirements can destination. This measurement is known as routing metric.
vary drastically across applications. Effective Routing is the process of selecting a finer path through
networking can be a prominent solution to this which a node can send the packet. Routing protocol can be
problem. classified in numerous ways. The classification of routing
• The main challenges faced by networking among protocols basically depends on their application in network
devices in, on or around the body are resource systems.
allocation, energy harvesting, co-existence and
privacy. A. General available routing protocols
• In WBAN, nodes capture large quantities of data Classification of general available routing protocols in
continuously. Thus WBAN should have some WBAN is illustrated in below Figure 2;
strategy of priority based data processing and
transmission which are involved in networking

B. Routing Issues in WBAN

1) Network lifetime: Network lifetime of a WBAN is
referred to as the time interval from when the network starts
to the time the network is significantly damaged. Generally
network lifetime is expressed as network depletion time.
Since the battery replacement and charging is not feasible in
implant medical devices used in WBANs, network lifetime
is of more importance in WBAN compared to other wireless
sensor networks.
2) Limitation of resources: WBANs use tiny sensor nodes
which have limited resources to perform its functionalities.
The WBANs nodes are bound to failure due to unavailable
battery power, memory and bandwidth limitations, which
are major threats to quality of service. A routing protocol Figure 2: Classification of general available routing
should have an effective networking to manage the data protocols
1. Cluster based routing protocols
 2017 International Conference on Innovations in Information, Embedded and Communication Systems (ICIIECS)
Cluster based routing protocols have proved to be
very suitable for minimizing the energy consumption and
thereby maximizing the network lifetime. In cluster based
routing the entire network is divided into clusters. Each
cluster consists of a cluster-head and member node.
Different mechanisms are provided for the cluster-head
selection. The communication between the member nodes
and base station is only possible via the cluster-head. The
functions of a cluster head are to collect, aggregate, and
forward the data from member nodes to the sink. The main
aim of this protocol is to reduce the number of direct
transmissions from source to sink [3].
2. Temperature based routing protocols
Temperature based protocols can be defined as
those protocols that consider node temperature as the metric
for the path selection. The main aim of this protocol is to
avoid link hot spot that is to minimize the local or overall
system temperature to avoid overheating. The sensors used
in WBAN are either attached with the body (wearable) or
placed inside the body (implant). Electrical and magnetic
fields are generated during wireless communication. The
exposure to electromagnetic fields results a rise in
temperature and an increase in radiation absorption for the
patient. Even a slight heat rise can affect the operations of
the sensitive organs. In WBAN continuous data
transmission of data is needed. So the continuous data
operations of body sensors cause the temperature rise.
Temperature measurement parameter in WBAN is called
SAR. Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) is the amount of
absorbed radiation energy by the tissues per unit weight.
The acceptable range of SAR is defined by different
countries [5, 6, 7].
3. Probabilistic based routing protocols
Probabilistic based routing protocols are those
protocols that consider the cost function as the metric for
path selection. The cost function depends on residual energy
and distance to sink from sensors. Cost function gets
updated after each rounds and select the path with minimum
cost function [12, 13].
4. Cross layer based routing protocol
Cross layer routing protocols combines the
challenges of network layer with other layers. These
protocols have low energy consumption, fixed end to end
delay and high throughput. But it cannot give high
performance in some cases like scenarios with high path
loss and body motion [8].
IV. ENERGY EFFICIENT ROUTING PROTOCOLS IN
WBAN
In WBANs available energy sources of nodes is a prime
factor that determines the effectiveness of the network.
Since these nodes are having only limited power supply and
their replacement or recharging is difficult. Thus, effective
energy utilization is one of the most threatening issues to
enable the network successful. The large scale consumption
of energy by the nodes in WBAN occurs during radio
frequency communication purpose. Routing protocols plays
a vital role to make the communication effective among
nodes and prolong the lifetime of a WBAN. Thus energy
efficiency is the most primitive requirement when designing
a routing protocol in WBANs. Some of the energy efficient
routing protocols are explained below.
Javaid et.al [7] introduced an energy efficient and thermal
aware routing protocol for WBANs in order to reduce the
nodes temperature as well as to decrease the delay for
critical data. M-ATTEMPT has four different phases of
operation: initialization phase, routing phase, scheduling
phase and data transmission phase. In the initialization
phase all nodes broadcast a packet and this packet includes
the sink ID and position. Single hop communication is used
for critical data delivery and for normal data delivery multi
hop communication is used. A route with less hop count is
selected during routing phase. If more than two routes are
available, node with less energy consumption to the sink is
selected. The proposed protocol introduces a threshold in
order to control the rise in temperature. If any node's
temperature rises beyond the threshold, the route to the
neighboring node will break. This protocol re-route the data
if the temperature is above the threshold, without occurring
the link break and this process is called the link-hot spot
detection. The sink node creates a Time Division Multiple
Access (TDMA) schedule for all root nodes in the
scheduling phase, while the root nodes send their data to
sink node during the data transmission phase. This protocol
provides high network lifetime.
An energy efficient protocol named Distance Aware
Relaying Energy efficient (DARE) proposed by Tauqir et.al
[10] to monitor the biological status of patients. This
protocol tries to reduce the energy consumption of the
monitoring sensors by providing the facility of deploying
relay node which in turn, help to reduce the communication
distance. For decreasing the energy consumption, the
sensors create a link with the sink by means of an on-body
relay, attached to the chest of each patient. The attached
body relay retains greater energy resources as compared to
other body sensors. It offer greater packet delivery ratio,
longer network lifetime and better stability period, but it has
a high propagation delay.
Ahmed et.al [11] introduced a routing protocol called
Link Aware and Energy Efficient scheme for Body Area
network (LAEEBA). In LAEEBA, a path with minimum
number of hops is selected for transmission. Direct
communication is used for emergency data and multi-hop is
used for normal data delivery. It consists of initialization
phase, next-hop selection phase, routing phase, energy
consumption phase and path-loss selection phase. Here
nodes with minimum energy and minimum distance from
the sink will be selected as forwarding node. When a node
receives all the information from other nodes, the forwarder
node transmits the data to sink. In subject to the operating
 2017 International Conference on Innovations in Information, Embedded and Communication Systems (ICIIECS)
frequency band, high losses may occur according to the
communication protocol adopted for nodes. The path loss
model can be selected by using the distance between the
node and sink.
Nadeem et.al [12] introduced an energy and power
efficient routing protocol model for WBANs. Stable
Increased-throughput Multi-hop Protocol for Link
Efficiency in wireless body area networks (SIMPLE)
protocol has three phases of operation: initial phase,
selection of next hop and scheduling. At the initial phase,
the sink will send a packet that contains information about
the location of the sink, packet ID, location, residual energy.
In selection of next hop phase, a new forwarder node is
selected in each round based on the cost function. The cost
function depends on residual energy and distance to the
sink. Here the parameter residual energy is used to balance
the energy consumption between the sensor nodes. This
protocol ensure minimum energy consumption, increased
throughput and longer network lifetime. In scheduling phase
forwarder node allocates Time Division Multiple Access
(TDMA) slots for its root nodes.
Ahmed et.al [13] introduced a protocol called Co-
operative Link Aware and Energy Efficient scheme for
Body Area network (Co-LAEEBA). In this, relay nodes are
utilized for cooperation which allows source node to utilize
more than one link at a time. Three advanced nodes act as
cooperative nodes. Normal nodes forward packets to
cooperative node in each round. Incoming and outgoing data
flow at each node must be equal. The path selection depends
on the varying distance between the nodes if the body is in
motion. It is an advanced version of LAEEBA.
Javaid et.al [14] proposed a new energy efficient routing
protocol called iMproved Stable Increased-throughput
Multi-hop Protocol for Link Efficiency in wireless body
area networks (iM-SIMPLE) in which the operation is
carried out in three phases; Initial phase, selection of next
hop and scheduling. At initial phase, the sink will send a
packet that contains information about the location of the
sink and also sensor nodes sends their packet with their ID,
location, residual energy. In selection of next hop phase, a
new forwarder is selected in each round. The sink calculates
the cost function on the basis of residual energy and distance
of nodes to the sink. Based on the calculated cost function,
those nodes with minimum cost function will select as a
forwarder node. In scheduling phase, forwarder node will
allocate a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) slots for
its root nodes. Also, mobility support (arm mobility) is
considered in this protocol. This protocol utilize linear
mathematical model for reducing the energy consumption.
The large scale consumption of energy by the nodes in
WBAN occurs during radio frequency communication,
sensing and data processing. Routing protocols plays a vital
role to make the communication effective among nodes and
prolong the lifetime of a WBAN. Thus energy efficiency is
the most primitive requirement in case of designing a
routing protocol in WBANs.
V. CONCLUSION
Wireless body area network, is a popular kind of
sensor network that is used in many applications such as
health care, entertainment, gaming, fire fighting, and
military applications. Energy consumption in WBAN is
important since all sensor nodes are battery powered.
Replacing or recharging in short intervals will be
impractical. One of the methods to achieve energy
efficiency is to perform energy efficient routing. The energy
efficient routing protocol depends on many factors such as
temperature, link, routing matrices, mobility etc. LAEEBA
and Co-LAEEBA protocols overcome the issue of energy
consumption through link aware mechanisms. iM-SIMPLE
overcomes the energy an issue arises due to mobility
through linear programming model and M-ATTEMPT
provides thermal aware routing. From the study of energy
efficient routing protocols in WBAN, it is found that Co-
LAEEBA is more energy efficient with the co-operative
based routing approach. In future, research focuses on the
techniques and routing protocols that would consider energy
efficient in WBAN and thus prolonging lifetime of the
networks.
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