IEEE 802.15.6 Relaying Protocol for MBANs

During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, Medical Body area networks (MBANs) emerged as an essential tool for the early diagnosis and treatment of infected patients. MBANs played an instrumental role in the remote treatment of COVID patients through early diagnosis using machine learning and IoT (Internet of Things). MBANs have paved their way in the health care industry and are being used in remote monitoring, emergency handling, and elderly assistance. The availability of the IEEE 802.15.6 standard has opened doors for new wearable consumer devices and IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) enabled applications to facilitate disease management. This standard was developed for wireless communication at a short-range, around the human body with low power requirements. This standard allows 2hop star topology within an intra-MBAN so that when direct communication is not possible, alternate routes are available through relays. This paper proposes a protocol for an intra-MBAN topology, which is a novel T-Relay mechanism that implements the 2-hop star topology. To validate the proposed protocol, it was tested on OMNeT ++ framework with Castalia Simulator for various scenarios. The simulation results show that the T-Relay mechanism enhances the PDR when the channel has variations.