Experimental characterisation of energy consumption in body area networks

This paper addresses the issue of power consumption in the field of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN). It presents a methodology used to perform real-time measurements of the energy consumption of a deployed WBAN, and describes how to design Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols, able to satisfy different application requirements in terms of lifetime, but also of latency. More precisely we analyse the performance of two MAC protocols, one based on low power listening and the other one based on the IEEE 802.15.6 standard, and we discuss their applicability to two specific scenarios. The evaluation is performed through experiments carried out on a hardware platform intended for WBANs, while the application scenarios are inspired by those defined in the FP7 EC Project, WiserBAN. Results obtained allow us to draw conclusions and considerations regarding energy consumption in realistic scenarios and provide significant inputs to WBAN designers.