Evaluation of MAC Protocols with Wake-up Radio for Implantable Body Sensor Networks

The use of wireless communication in implantable medical devices is growing rapidly due to an increasing demand for sophisticated health-care. Recently, a new type of sensor network called Implantable Body Sensor Network (IBSN) has emerged. IBSN is a network of implantable medical sensors and devices which can communicate with each other or to a base station using radio-frequency (RF) link. Wireless communication in IBSN must be extremely reliable and energy-efficient in order to provide a long-term safe operability. The underlying MAC protocol in an RF communication is an important feature which directly affects reliability and energy-efficiency. To overcome the high power demand of wireless communication in IBSN, the concept of wake-up radio was introduced. Some MAC protocols that can make use of wake-up radio have been proposed. This paper analyzes three of the existing MAC protocols with the wake-up feature that are suitable for IBSN, and emphasizes their strengths and weaknesses. Simulations show that performance of MAC protocols with wake-up radio varies with different access mechanisms. Finally, we present an overview of MAC protocols with wake-up radio and discuss their practicality in implantable medical sensor networks.