Performance benchmarking for wireless body area networks at 2.4 GHz

This paper investigates wireless body area network (WBAN) performance to capture packet reception ratio (PRR) and its correlation with received signal strength indicator (RSSI), and the minimum transmission powers required for the targeted performance. We design and carry out experiments on IEEE 802.15.4 based WBAN prototype to measure the performance metrics in different activities and environments. It is observed that RSSI values for a given on-body link has radical variation in a minute-scale period in a realistic environment. This observation implies that a few of RSSI samples cannot be used as an estimate of the average RSSI over many packets transmitted over an on-body link. In postural mobility, the periodicity pattern of link property is more obviously observed at links with clearer line-of-sight and at higher transmission powers. The objective of the performance benchmarking is to provide insights and guidelines for the design of resource management schemes for WBANs.