A MAC Designed For WBAN Based On TDMA

With the development of sensor technology, wireless communication andMicroelectronics manufacturing technology; low cost wireless communication has widelyapplied in many application. With more and more wireless device working around thehuman body, a network based on human will be possible. Wireless body area network(WBAN) which is made up of human related network elements has been put forward. Theelementary application is medical application. But due to the energy consumption of thesensor nodes is so strictly constrained, particularly the implanted device, the power ofcommunication and computing is limited. This restrict the applications of this network.How to lower down the energy consumption of the sensor nodes to prolong the lifetime ofthe network is the primary goal of the WBAN.The thesis studies the possible network structures of WBAN. As the main energyconsumption of the sensor node depends on the operating of the transceivers, the MACprotocol plays an important role on scheduling the transceivers. A good MAC protocolmay deal well with the idle listening, message collision and overhearing. So it could savea lot of energy consumption. The thesis studies the PHY protocol proposed byIEEE802.15.6, and then analyzes the MAC protocol proposed by research institute, andmainly analyzes the MAC protocol proposed by IEEE802.15.6and a multi-superframeMAC protocol based on TDMA. And then points out the deficiencies of the MAC. Tosolve the energy waste, the thesis presents a more energy efficient MAC, M-MAC whichincorporates a multi-superframe structure. We model the WBAN system in OPNET andrun a simulation between the MAC protocol proposed in IEEE802.15.6draft and theM-MAC proposed in this thesis. Then we put the result (binary data) into MATLAB todraw a figure to briefly support the point that M-MAC is more energy efficient. Thisthesis first analyzes the energy saving possibility of this protocal. Then we present thealgorithm of the multi-superframe structure which is made up from a variable number ofsuperframes. And we bring in the Adaptive Guard Band Algorithm with drift adjustmentfactor to control the width of the guard band. This algorithm will adjust the guard band tothe actual drifts. The thesis also compares the energy consumed by the IEEE802.15.6and M-MAC in two simulations. It shows that M-MAC is more energy efficient.According to the application of WBAN, the thesis gives a suitable network topology.And a comparative analysis of M-MAC and IEEE802.15.6MAC show that M-MAC hassuperior efficiency with energy savings of25to87%.