On the Application of Slotted-ALOHA in Optical Wireless Body-Area Networks

In this work, we investigate the multiple access (MA) management in optical wireless body-area networks (WBANs) for medical applications. Here, given the limited battery lifetime and computational resources of medical sensor nodes, placed typically on the human body, efficient MA management can be done in the medium-access control (MAC layer, e.g., via random access to the optical wireless channel. We propose the use of Slotted-ALOHA protocol, which has the potential advantages of simplicity and efficiency to reduce packet collisions and to enhance the overall throughput. We further optimize the network energy efficiency by taking into consideration a realistic channel model based on particle swarm optimization, given the high complexity of the optimization problem. This approach provides valuable insights into the efficient design of optical WBANs.