An incremental relay based cooperative routing protocol for wireless in-body sensor networks

In this paper, we aim to minimize in-body sensor node energy consumption and to prolong the network lifetime by utilizing a relay strategy based on our proposed flexible quality of service (QoS) radio frequency communication module and advanced In-to-out body path loss (PL) model. A selection algorithm is derived and investigated in which the relay nodes with lower energy consumption and minimum distance to the coordinator will be chosen in each round. In this way, time division multiple access (TDMA) can be investigated to schedule data transmission from implants to the corresponding relays, and thus minimize the overall length of communication links. Moreover, a linear programming network lifetime model is proposed along with various subjective functions. Followed by constraints, simulations are conducted on a proposed topology network assuming two commercial transceivers. Results show that the existing two-relay based protocol achieves higher transmission data rates due to the availability of redundant communication pathways. However, our proposed incremental relay-based cooperative routing protocol outperforms the existing two-relay based scheme regarding total network lifetime, overall throughput, average power consumption and propagation delay.