Towards a new optimisation of IEEE 802.15.4 for better quality of service under wireless body area networks

In the last two decades, the IEEE standard 802.15.4 has emerged as the most popular candidate for wireless body area networks (WBAN) due to some of its key features such as energy efficiency, scalability and design flexibility. However, although this norm provides a high level of reliability for body sensors requiring low data rates, it is unable to support high data rate applications (> 250 Kbit/s). The aim of our work is to optimise the performance of this norm under high load conditions without degrading its great results under low traffic loads. Serving for this purpose, we first look for the reason behind transmission failures in IEEE 802.15.4-based WBANs. Then, we analyse via simulations the impact of different configurable MAC parameters on the performance of IEEE 802.15.4-based WBANs under different traffic loads. Finally, based on this analysis, we suggest a new optimisation for IEEE 802.15.4, able to prevent transmission failures and hence improving its performance for better quality of service (QoS) under WBANs.