An Energy Analysis of IEEE 802.15.6 Scheduled Access Modes for Medical Applications

Medical body area networks will employ a range of implantable and body worn devices to support a wide range of applications with diverse QoS requirements. The IEEE 802.15.6 working group is developing a communications standard for low power devices operating on, in and around the body and medical devices are a key application area of the standard. The ISO/IEEE 11073 standard addresses medical device interoperability and specifies the required QoS for medical applications. This paper investigates the lifetime of devices using the scheduled access modes proposed by IEEE 802.15.6, while satisfying the throughput and latency constraints of the ISO/IEEE 11073 applications. It computes the optimum superframe structure and number of superframes that the device can sleep to achieve maximum lifetime. The results quantify the maximum expected achievable lifetime for these applications and show that scheduled access mode is not appropriate for all application classes such as those with intermittent transfer patterns.