McMAC: Towards a MAC Protocol with Multi-Constrained QoS Provisioning for Diverse Traffic in Wireless Body Area Networks

Abstract: The emergence of heterogeneous applications with diverse requirements forresource-constrained Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) poses significant challengesfor provisioning Quality of Service (QoS) with multi-constraints (delay and reliability) whilepreserving energy efficiency. To address such challenges, this paper proposes McMAC,a MAC protocol with multi-constrained QoS provisioning for diverse traffic classes inWBANs. McMAC classifies traffic based on their multi-constrained QoS demands andintroduces a novel superframe structure based on the "transmit-whenever-appropriate"principle, which allows diverse periods for diverse traffic classes according to their respectiveQoS requirements. Furthermore, a novel emergency packet handling mechanism is proposedto ensure packet delivery with the least possible delay and the highest reliability. McMACis also modeled analytically, and extensive simulations were performed to evaluate itsperformance. The results reveal that McMAC achieves the desired delay and reliabilityguarantee according to the requirements of a particular traffic class while achieving energyefficiency.