Third 2008 International Conference on Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology
QoS issues with focus on Wireless Body Area Networks
M.A. Ameen, Ahsanun Nessa, Kyung Sup Kwak
Graduate School of IT & Telecommunications, Inha University, Korea
m.ameen@hotmail.com
Abstract
Wireless body area networks (WBAN) applications
have emerged as one of the hottest research areas of
wireless sensor networks (WSN). With the advent of
miniature, cost effective and wearable sensor devices,
WBAN has attracted large amount of research time.
Lots of works are going on in this direction. Besides
open issues in WSN like standardization, energy
efficiency, security and privacy factors, QoS issues are
also of major concern. Lots of research is going on
around the world to improve QoS factors in sensor
networks. Some people have suggested protocols with
QoS focus for WSN. But QoS requirements vary from
application to application. It is fact that the
heterogeneous working requirements of WBAN define
different QoS issues which are specific to that
particular application area only. WBAN applications
are very sensitive and hence QoS issues in WBAN
require more attention and focus and should be taken
up more seriously. In this paper we have tried to
present various aspects of QoS with focus on WBAN.
We have also tried to present other factors that
particularly influence the overall quality of service in
WBAN.
Keywords: Quality of Service (QoS), WBAN, WSN,
QoS Perspectives, Goals, QoS Metrics, QoS
Requirements
1. Introduction
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are made of
spatially distributed tiny electronic devices that are low
powered and cost effective. The possible application
scenarios [2] of WSN, which are envisaged at the
moment, include environmental monitoring, military
surveillance digitally equipped homes, health
monitoring, manufacturing process monitoring,
conferences, vehicle tracking and detection
(telemetric), and monitoring inventory control.
978-0-7695-3407-7/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICCIT.2008.130
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Fig -1 A typical WBAN application [12]
Wireless sensor networks that can be used to
actively monitor human activities have become great
research interest in recent years. Applications are being
designed and issues related to this field are being taken
up. Demand of wearable wireless devices has been on
the rise day by day. Due to this, a new concept of
‘people centric’ and ‘urban’ wireless sensor networking
is on the rise [3]. Applications focused on monitoring
health status of patients have been on demand lately
and various projects [5] [6] are on the development and
implementation stages. A simple WBAN application
scenario has been shown in Fig-1. Sensor networks are
being researched and deployed for this purpose.
Typical application scenarios could be monitoring of
heart beats, body temperature, body positions, location
of the subject, overall monitoring of ill patients both in
hospital and at home and so on. This domain area is
normally called wireless body area sensor networks
(WBASN) or sometimes as wireless body area
networks or simply WBAN.
Quality of service (or QoS) is one of the aspects of
any application. QoS research is not new; prior
research has focused on managing and reserving
resources in the Internet, wireless networks, and ad hoc
networks [1]. QoS in wireless sensor network as a
whole has been a great research interest in recent times.
But it is a fact that in sensor networks, QoS issues
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 didn’t get lots of attention like other aspects such as
architecture and protocol design, energy conservation,
location and positioning of nodes [2].
Works on QoS studies particularly focused on
WBAN applications are not done much yet. Many
authors [5, 13, 14] just mentioned it as an issue but no
further studies have been made by them. Author such
as [10] tried take up QoS in WBAN with regard to
combating channel impairment. The QoS issues in
WBAN need more attention due to the critical level of
operations. For example, WBAN that is being used to
monitor the health of an elderly heart patient needs
highest quality of service in its operations.
Aspects such as deployment, security, privacy, and
energy related issues are being researched widely for
both WSN and WBAN. This paper has been motivated
by the recent studies with respect to WBAN
applications and rise of human centric or so called
people centric computing using wearable sensing
devices. In this paper we have tried to present the
various QoS issues that are related to WBAN along
with WSN.
authors [23] say that QoS is a general term that
incorporates bandwidth, latency, and jitter to describe a
network's ability to customize the treatment of specific
classes of data.
In practice, QoS requirements differ from one
application to another; however, they can be specified
in terms of reliability, timeliness, robustness,
trustworthiness, and adaptability, among others. Some
QoS metrics may be used to measure the degree of
satisfaction of these services [9].
Although QoS research in computing is not new, in
sensor network applications it is still a largely
unexplored research field. This is mainly because
WSNs are different from traditional networks [7]. Also
most of works regarding QoS have been done in
traditional networking areas. Due to ever demanding
and advancements in WSN technology, QoS research is
gaining momentum lately and thereby influencing
WBAN applications too. QoS specific to WBAN is
becoming a hot research area.
2.1. QoS Perspectives and Goals

This paper has been organized as follows. In section
1, we presented a brief introduction of the subject
matter. In section 2, we discuss the QoS in wireless
sensor networks and extended it to WBAN. We also
discuss QoS perspectives, goals and metrics. In section
3, we discuss the major challenges to QoS support. In
section 4, we discuss some protocols with focus on
QoS. In section 5, we discuss various QoS
requirements and in section 6, we discuss some open
research issues of QoS and then finally the conclusion.
Traditional QoS are viewed in two perspectives –
application and network. In the first case, QoS
generally refers to the quality as perceived by the
user/application. But in networking perspective, QoS is
accepted as a measure of the service quality that the
network offers to the applications/users [8]. The two
QoS perspectives can be demonstrated via a simple
model [8] shown in Fig-2.
Also in application
perspective, QoS refers Applications/Users

2. QoS in WSN to WBAN to an assurance to

provide a set of
The Quality of Service (QoS) term is an overloaded measurable service QoS Support Requirements

term with various meanings and perspectives. There is attributes to the end-to-
little consensus on the precise definition of QoS. end users/applications in
Different people and communities perceive and terms of parameters as Network

interpret QoS in different ways [8]. The definitions mentioned earlier such
vary from application to applications. Various authors as delay, jitter, available Fig-2: A simple QoS model
Fig -1: A Simple QoS model [8]
have defined QoS according to that particular bandwidth, and packet [8]
application or area. Hence a particular definition of loss. From the network
QoS related to sensor networks has yet to be derived. perspective, the network’s goal is to provide the QoS
Some authors such as [22] have defined QoS as the services while maximizing network resource
optimum number of sensors that should be sending utilization. To achieve this goal, the network is
information at any given time. PC magazine Jargon required to analyze the application requirements and
Buster [22] defines it as a generic term for measuring deploy various network QoS mechanisms [7].
and maintaining the quality of network characteristics
such as transmission and error rates. While some other

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 The current QoS effort can be categorized as best
effort (no QoS), guaranteed services (hard QoS) or
differentiated services (soft QoS). So goals should
include to fulfill any of the above three categories as
per the requirements of the application [10].
QoS goals should include the maximization of
services by the network by minimal usage of energy
(Energy consumption) and efficient bandwidth
utilization [7]. These should also take care of the facts
that in any sensor network such as WBAN, we have
limited computational resources, limited memory and
limited time (deadlines) for an event. This is
particularly tough to meet in hard resource wanting and
mission critical environments.
2.2. QoS Metrics
It has been an important question to ask what the
appropriate QoS metrics are for WSN [20]. Hence we
also feel that the same question should also be asked
for WBAN. Traditional Data Networks [7] have
common QoS requirements and same end-to-end
parameters are used. Here specific techniques to realize
QoS support are diverse due to unique properties of
underlying networks. The conventional networks
employ end-to-end metrics [16]. Also it is shown that
traditional QoS metrics do not apply in sensor networks
applications [21]. So it has been deduced that end-to-
end does not necessary apply in WBAN too. Therefore
the QoS metrics should be different from what we
know in traditional networking environment.
Sometimes the sensors are deployed in large
numbers to increase the efficiency of the system. It is
also very costly to check quality of service of
individual sensors used in a typical application domain
of WBAN. Hence it is necessary to consider the
network as a whole or at least to use network in part.
So, QoS metrics in WBAN should consider the fact
that one need to focus on collective services rather than
going for individual sensors. But we also feel that it
might not be the case always. For example, single
sensor enabled wearable devices. But these devices are
yet to become common daily life items.
2.3. QoS in Homogenous and Heterogeneous
Environments
WBAN though special kind of wireless sensor network,
the services here vary widely. For example, an elderly
people/patient monitoring system [11] mentions the
need of the person to be both at home/hospital and
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outside. In such scenarios, it becomes a must to use
heterogeneous technology models to keep the patient in
monitoring phase as shown in Fig-3.
Fig-3: An elderly healthcare monitoring
system architecture [11]
Here we can observe that the network technology
may change from time to time. So, QoS in WBAN
varies in the context of application requirements.
Applications which are fixed type such as monitoring
patient in hospital beds, QoS requirements may less
complex than applications where WLAN, GPRS,
UMTS technologies are used simultaneously.
3. Major Challenges to QoS support in
WBAN
Meeting QoS requirements in sensor networks is
difficult task [2,7]. There are major limitations to this.
Some challenges limitations are described below. The
same cases apply for WBAN too as it is a subset of
WSN. Some authors [4, 7, 9, 17] have described the
major technical challenges for supporting QoS
requirements as overcoming bandwidth limitation,
effective energy and delay trade-off, handling buffer
size limitation, supporting multiple traffic types, and
the removal of redundancy. These all are applicable to
WBAN applications too. We can summarize those
factors with respect to WBAN applications as follows –

Resource limitations: The most severe
constraint a sensor node restricted by is the
limited access to battery power, limited
bandwidth of the wireless channel, limited
processing capabilities, memory, buffer size as
well as the transmission power of the sensor
nodes. So we can clearly see that under such
resource restricted properties traditional QoS
of routing and MAC protocols are not
applicable in WBAN applications at all.

Unpredictable traffic patterns: QoS support
in traditional networks is often dependent on a
certain periodicity of the data traffic. But we
all know that in WBAN, it is entirely
different. Sometimes we might experience
 data burst, sometimes no traffic and number of sinks. Hence it is argued that QoS
sometimes real time responses required such mechanisms should be designed for an
as in the emergency case of heart failure unbalanced QoS-constrained traffic.
scenarios.
Multiple sinks: WBAN applications prefer

Network instability: the network topology central coordinator which acts as the sink too.
might change frequently due to- link failure, It is not usual to have multiple sinks. But it
power failure, and mobility of the nodes. Also may happen that due to different nature of
for the fact that sometimes certain devices sensors for different types of data in WBAN,
need not to be in operational mode and hence multiple sinks are used. It arises from the need
are in sleep mode to save energy. This of different requirements on the network. For
changes the network structure. The network example, one sink may ask data from heart
topology might change frequently. Routing monitoring sensors in every minute, while
and medium access under these unstable another sink node may need only emergency
conditions is challenging event from heart sensors or blood pressure

Network dynamics: It may arise from monitoring sensors etc. Hence it is necessary
dynamic topology changes and unreliable that WBAN supports different QoS levels in
nature of wireless networks. Dynamic such cases of multiple sinks.
topology can change in WBAN due to node
mobility, failure, and addition of new nodes. Although we have mentioned some of the challenges
Unreliable nature of wireless links may cause and limiting factors, there might be some more factors
havoc in emergency data transfer. Hence it which influences and increases the complexity of QoS
increases complexity of QoS support. support in WBAN applications. Further studies in this

Energy balance: This is always a key concern direction are needed.
in all sensor networks application areas.
Hence it always requires careful management 4. Some Protocols with focus on QoS
of the energy resources. The energy load must
be evenly distributed among all sensor nodes The discussion so far shows that QoS in traditional data
and devices. networks cannot be used in WBAN. There is need of

Data redundancy: There might be specific QoS MAC and routing protocols. Some
possibilities of high redundancy in the sensor authors [18,19] have already proposed such protocols
data. It unnecessarily spends much precious for sensor networks. But it is yet to see how effective
energy. The solutions can be in the form of they are in sensitive application areas of WBAN. Here
data fusion and data aggregation. These we mention some comparisons of routing and MAC
techniques help to maintain robustness while protocols as presented in [17].
decreasing redundancy in the data. But it also
introduces -latency and complicates QoS 4.1 Some Routing protocols with focus on QoS:
design.

Heterogeneous traffic types: We have  Sequential Assignment Routing
already mentioned this in previous section. (SAR)
Applications might need access to  Multi-path and multi-speed routing
heterogeneous data collected by different protocol (MMSPEED)
types of sensors with different sampling rates.  SPEED [18]
This heterogeneous environment in WBAN  An Energy-Aware QoS Routing
makes QoS support more complex and Protocol -by Akkaya and Younis [19]
challenging.

Packet criticality: Some data in WBAN are Table-1: Comparison of routing protocols with QoS focus [17]
most times very critical and it needs real time
Energy-awareness Routing approach QoS
attentions. QoS mechanisms may be required differentiation
Low Moder High Table On No Ye
to differentiate packet importance and set up a ate driven demand s
priority structure. SAR x x x
SPEED x x x

Unbalanced traffic: Data may flow from MMSPEED x x x
many sensor devices (many patients in a Akkaya et al x x x
hospital along with outside people) to small

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 4.2 Some MAC protocols with focus on QoS
 QoS-aware Medium Access Control
 EDF-based Access Protocol
 Traffic-Adaptive Medium Access
Protocol (TRAMA) [15]
Table-2: Comparison of MAC protocols with QoS focus [17]
Energy-awareness MAC approach
Low Moder Hi Reservati Contention
ate gh on based based
QMAC x x
TRAMA x x
EDF- x x
based
As we can see from Table 1 and 2, no particular
protocol is able to provide all the functionalities. Hence
we strongly feel that more research should be done in
this direction too.
5. QoS Requirements
QoS requirements are so complex in sensor
network applications that we almost need to check it in
every layer of the network. Many people are trying to
figure out the requirements. Authors in [4] have
exclusively explored the QoS requirements in the same
fashion as OSI-7 layer approach for sensor
applications. We briefly present them here as follows-

QoS requirements for Application layer
(usually specified by users): It includes system
lifetime, response time, data novelty, detection
probability, data reliability and data resolution

QoS requirements for the Transport layer: It
includes reliability, bandwidth, latency, and
cost.

QoS requirements for the Network layer: It
includes path latency, routing maintenance,
congestion probability, routing robustness and
energy efficiency.

QoS requirements for the Connectivity
Maintenance layer: it includes network
diameter, network capacity, average path cost,
connectivity, robustness and connectivity
maintenance

QoS requirements for the Coverage
Maintenance layer: It includes coverage
percentage, coverage reliability, coverage
robustness, coverage maintenance.

QoS requirements for the MAC layer: It
includes communication range, throughput,
transmission reliability, and energy efficiency

QoS requirements for the PHY layer: It
includes physical capabilities impose resource
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constraints on the QoS requirements of other
layers. In fact it impacts all the other layers
As mentioned earlier, for any sensor networks
application such as WBAN, QoS requirements can be
subdivided in to two major categories- Application
Specific QoS and Network QoS. But it is very difficult
QoS
to analyze QoS requirements for every application.
differentiati Different WBAN applications have different
on
N Yes
requirement in terms of quality. Sometimes prompt
o action is more important than the quality of
x
x communication and thereby compromising quality.
x Hence application requirements influence the QoS
parameters. In network QoS we are mainly concerned
how the network can deliver the QoS-constrained
sensor data while efficiently utilizing network
resources [7]. Here we analyze each class of
applications classified by the following data delivery
models- event-driven, query-driven and continuous
delivery models. The following (Table-3) presents a
brief comparison of each model in terms of parameters
end-to-end, interactivity, delay tolerance and criticality.
Table-3: Application Requirements [7]
Class Event-driven Query-driven Continuous
End-to- End No No No
Interactivity Yes Yes No
Delay tolerance No Query-specific Yes
Criticality Yes Yes Yes
These all makes QoS a complex phenomenon.
Hence it is important to know the trade-offs of QoS
with other parameters in WBAN applications. It is also
worth to mention that if not all layers then along with
protocols in MAC and PHY layers, we need QoS
specific protocols at least for transport layer as it
includes major parameters such as reliability,
bandwidth, latency and cost.
6. Open Research Issues
QoS issues are closely related with many other
aspects of WBAN. Here we again want to mention a
simple fact to be noted down that QoS always vary
from application to application. But still there are some
common problems which are applicable to major areas
of wireless sensor networks. Open research issues [7]
are mentioned for QoS in wireless sensor networks
which we feel directly applicable to WBAN too. Some
of the open research issues are as follows- simpler QoS
models, QoS-aware data dissemination protocols, QoS
support based on collective QoS parameters, traditional
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Acknowledgment International Conference on Wireless Networks
(ICWN '04), pp. 227-233, Las Vegas, Nev, USA,
This research was supported by the MKE (Ministry June 2004.
of Knowledge Economy), Korea, under the ITRC [8] Aura Ganz, Zvi Ganz, Kitti Wongthavarawat,
(Information Technology Research Center) support “Multimedia Wireless Networks: Technologies,
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