Abstract
Communication in Body Area Networks (BANs) involves weak signals, due to
safety regulations, huge pathloss from the absorption and usually high
mobility. In this work, we introduce an improved mobility aware relaying
scheme for BANs, as an alternative to the two-hop star topology
extension of IEEE 802.15.6-2012, in order to enhance packet delivery.
Specifically, an emergency phase (EP) is added after the regular random
access phase (RAP1) of the superframe and the connected nodes transmit
rescue beacons to reach disconnected nodes. When a disconnected node
receives a rescue beacon, it participates in the current EP. The packets
are buffered and relayed to the hub by the connected nodes. Simulation
results show that it is feasible to receive more packets compared to the
standard with a justified increase of energy consumption due to random
access which is compensated with increased packet delivery.