A Multi-Hop QoS-Aware and Predicting Link Quality Estimation (PLQE) Routing Protocol for Reliable WBSN

Technological advancements and miniaturization of sensor have made it possible to use tiny size sensors nodes to monitor patients’ physiological data in real-time at very low cost. The network of such small size sensor nodes is often called wireless body sensor networks (WBSNs). The patient’s data is highly sensitive which required to reach reliably and timely at the destination node. However, short range wireless nodes and postural body movements cause frequent topological changes and recurrent network partitioning. The network partitioning leads to delayed and significant loss of critical patient’s data such as Electrocardiogram (ECG), Electroencephalogram (EEG) and Electromyogram (EMG). Therefore, QoS requirement of WBSNs in terms of reliability, end-to-end delay and throughput are highly compromise. We in this paper propose a Predicting routing protocol PLQE to address reliable data transmission and network partitioning due to node mobility. The PLQE dynamically determines the efficient links by using beta probability density function, link quality and link delay estimation (LDE). The PLQE is composed of link reliability factor (LRF) and expected probability Indicator (EPI) to obtain most often updated status of the links to figure out stable and reliable end to end route to the destination node. The simulation results confirm the higher performance of the proposed scheme against state-of-the-art routing protocols in terms of packet delivery ratio, end to end delay, throughput and normalized routing load.