1

A Comparative Analysis of Energy Efficient

Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless
Body Area Networks
Adil Sheraz, Wajid Ullah Khan, Sami Ullah, Faisal Naeem, Syed Irfan Ullah, Abdus Salam, Arshad Farhad and
Haseeb Zafar

Adil Sheraz is with the Department of Computing and Technology, Abasyn University, Peshawar, Pakistan (phone: +92-3339327436; e-mail:
adil_2engr@hotmail.com).
Wajid Ullah Khan is with the Department of Computing and Technology, Abasyn University, Peshawar, Pakistan (e-mail: arbabwajid.ullah@abasyn.edu.pk).
Sami Ullah is with the Department of Software Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan (e-mail:
eng.sami247@gmail.com).
Faisal Naeem is with the Department of Computing and Technology, Abasyn University, Peshawar, Pakistan (e-mail: faisal.naeem45@gmail.com).
Syed Irfan Ullah is with the Department of Computing and Technology, Abasyn University, Peshawar, Pakistan (e-mail: syed.irfanullah@abasyn.edu.pk).
Abdus Salam is with the Department of Computing and Technology, Abasyn University, Peshawar, Pakistan (e-mail: dr.salam@abasyn.edu.pk).
Arshad Farhad is with the Department of Computer Science, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Sahiwal, Pakistan (e-mail:
arshadfarhad@ymail.com).
Haseeb Zafar is with Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan (e-mail:
haseeb@uetpeshawar.edu.pk).

ABSTRACT
Increasing developments in wireless communication has led to emergence of advanced technologies like Wireless Body Area
Networks (WBANs). It is now possible to monitor a critical patient remotely at a far distance using WBAN. WBAN nodes are
battery powered and charging and replacement of the battery is not feasible as some nodes may be implanted inside a human
body. It is required to design energy efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol to control the radio communications for
the enhancement of lifetime of network. This paper reviews some of the most recent energy efficient MAC protocols, and
discusses their advantages and limitations as well as mentioning some important characteristics of MAC protocols.

Keywords:
Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs); Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol; lifetime

The architecture of the WBAN communication employs

1. Introduction intra-WBAN, inter-WBAN and beyond WBAN [2]. In intra-
WBAN sensor node communicates with the coordinator
Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are deployed to
(Personal Digital Assistant or smart phone etc), inter-WBAN
human body for patients real time monitoring especially in
communications offer exchange of data with one or different
cases of chronic diseases, and also in habitual tracking. Sensor
access points (i-e Personal Server) and beyond-WBAN
nodes can be implanted in, on or around the human body.
communication utilizes the existing public networks, internet
Sensor nodes are battery powered. Charging or replacing of
or cellular network. Energy efficient Medium Access Control
battery is not feasible in WBANs, in case of implanted sensor
(MAC) protocols are required to be designed to enhance the
nodes. The main functions of the sensor nodes include sensing,
lifetime of WBAN, as MAC layer is the controlling authority
processing, communication and or actuating (optionally). A
of the most energy consuming component of the node i-e radio
WBAN generally consists of sensor nodes and a coordinator
[3].
and actuators (optionally) with low power and short range
The rest of the paper is formulated as follows: Section 2
communications [1]. From the wireless sensor networks
describes details of different energy efficient MAC protocols.
perspective in Wireless Body Area Networks most of energy is
In section 3 we briefly present the comparative analysis of
consumed by communication as compared to sensing and
MAC protocols. Section 4 gives the future directions for
processing. Sensor radio is the main component used for
further research studies, and the paper is concluded in section
communication of monitored data.
5.

2. Energy Efficient MAC Protocols
During the last decade a number of energy efficient MAC
protocols have been proposed in the literature. The recent
energy efficient MAC protocols are discussed below:
2.1 2L-MAC
This protocol uses two layers strategy. The first layer deals
with intra-WBAN by using polling mechanism to coordinate
transmission to, and from sensor nodes. In second layer,
initially the coordinator examines the channel, if found unused,
then sends a polling frame to the sensor node. If the channel is
sensed busy by neighboring WBAN, coordinator halts and
waits for a prescribed time interval (backoff timer), hence
avoiding interference. When the polling frame is received by
the sensor node, it then sends its data to the coordinator. As a
result interference within intra-WBAN is entertained by
polling frame mechanism and with inter-WBAN, carrier sense
is used for interference minimization. 2L-MAC averts both
inter and intra WBAN interference [4]. The QoS is achieved
by channel switching mechanism. After wake up, a node waits
for a defined interval of time, if it doesnt receive any polling
frame from the coordinator it simply switches to another
channel.
2.2 A-CSMA/CA
In intra-wireless body area network interference may be
avoided by using multiple access techniques like Time
Division Multiple Access (TDMA), however the interference
due to the neighbor WBAN cant be ignored. This problem is
solved by A-CSMA/CA [5]. In A-CSMA/CA the star topology
is used. The WBAN consist of one coordinator and multiple
sensor nodes. The coordinator controls all operations of
WBAN. The coordinator measures the interference level of
coexisting WBANs, and accordingly adopts the adjusted MAC
frame length to alleviate the interference with the neighbor
WBANs. If the coordinator senses high interference level from
coexisting WBAN, it minimizes the length of the frame to
permit other WBANs to have maximum transmissions and less
delay. In other case the coordinator will maximize the length
of the MAC frame to have more transmission from its own
nodes, hence enhancing the performance.
Other issues, such as, power consumption is handled by
applying the proper sleeping and awaking mechanism, and
limited sensing, which means that nodes do not sense or
sample the channel all the times or periodically, rather nodes
sample the channel intermittently. A sensing period, specific
time interval of any value (x) is set for all nodes. When any
node senses the channel unused, it goes to sleep mode and if a
node finds the channel busy the node waits until the beacon is
received from the coordinator. As the nodes are in sleeping
mode for x interval of time, the coordinator needs to take up
the channel as found free of communication, for the same
interval to ensure that the nodes will not miss the beacon. For
this purpose the coordinator will not send the beacon directly
on the free channel but rather it will broadcast a busy tone to
occupy the channel, following the busy tone, beacon is
transmitted. This protocol also provides the facility of multi-
channel and QoS.
2
2.3 MDTA-MAC
MDTA-MAC [6] modifies the duty cycle and superframe of
IEEE 802.15.6 to meet the energy efficiency and delay
constraints. A star topology is assumed with a coordinator
which functions as a gateway for external networks. MDTA-
MAC categorizes the data into four types with priority from
higher to lower. These are Critical data packet (CP), Reliable
data packet (RP), Delay driven data packet (DP) and Ordinary
data packet (OP). In contrast to IEEE 802.15.6 superframe
[14], MDTA-MAC uses one EAP (Exclusive Access Period),
one RAP (Random Access Phase) instead of two for each,
eliminating MAP (Manage Access Phase) while CAP
(Contention Access Period) is used. Traffic load is also
categorized as low load, moderate load, high load and
overload. MDTA-MAC uses different frame structures
depending upon load type. Coordinator broadcast beacon to
synchronize the network, recognize the data load type and
category as well, EAP is allotted to send critical and delay
driven data packets (CPs and DPs) while CAP period is
utilized for RPs and OPs. This protocol provides less delay
with energy efficiency by prioritizing the load and traffic
classes but at the same time offers network complexities and
needs close synchronization among the nodes.
2.4 MP-MAC
According to [7] hard switching of radio from sleep mode to
active mode consumes more energy as compared to a node
being active without transmission. This also compromises
latency. In MP-MAC (Multi-Priority MAC) Markoff chain
model is used for optimality between energy efficiency and
delay. Coordinator is named as BNC (Central Body Node) and
sensor node as BN (Body Node), data is also categorized as
periodic or regular data and emergency data. To communicate
regular data, BNC triggers the BN to wake up and transmit its
data, whereas emergency data is directly transmitted by BN
without waiting to be triggered by BNC. The active/sleep cycle
of BN is controlled by BNC. BN is supposed to have three
modules, Service Request (SR) for procurement and
transmission of data, Queue module to store data and Service
Provider (SP) to mainly transmit traffic. This protocol
provides less overhead with no idle listening, and improved
data arrival rate. The network degrades when the number of
nodes is increased largely.
2.5 I-MAC
I-MAC provides improved energy, utilizing time slots
efficiently and data delivery delay requirements [8]. Longer
superframes are used to avoid unnecessary beaconing. Time
slot is periodically assigned and or allotted to nodes as data
sources. More time slots are assigned to nodes for periodic
reporting, because periodic traffic is huge as compared to
emergency or urgent data. Short interruption slots are inserted
inside the superframe to carry urgent data, which also
guarantees the real time requirements of the data. By using
interruption slots, the coordinator is allowed to cut the ongoing
superframe and begin with a new superframe. The coordinator
controls the adjustment of interrupt interval slots according to
the frequency of the urgent data. The coordinator is allowed to
shut the ongoing communication, and starts a new superframe

to communicate the urgent data. Unnecessary beaconing is
avoided by adopting a long superframe in length and interrupt
time slots, so the energy efficiency is maximized.
The interrupt time slot is further subdivided into two
portions, first for urgent data and second for acknowledgment
in case of retransmission. The superframe consists of starting
and ending beacons, in between them Guaranteed Time Slots
(GTS) are found, and interrupt intervals are also inserted in
between several GTSs. At the end of the superframe
Contention Access Period (CAP) is used for collision
detection. Once collision occurs in interrupt slots due to more
than a single node occupy an interrupt slot, a CAP period is
activated for urgent data retransmission. When any node
having large urgent data, it sends a GTS request to coordinator
and an optional GTS is provided to the node and, remaining
GTSs are distributed to nodes for periodic reporting. Interrupt
slots are used to interrupt the ongoing superframe to inform
the coordinator and other nodes with its urgent data or
command. The reduced beacon frame and interrupt time slots
along with CAP period provides efficient time slot utilization,
hence improving the energy efficiency.
2.6 MEM-MAC
In MEM-MAC [9] longer superframe with low duty cycle is
maintained for energy efficient emergency traffic. Smaller
active time slots are inserted into long inactive periods of the
superframe, to facilitate emergency traffic with less latency,
accommodating real time and trusty communication link
avoiding unnecessary beaconing. The inserted time slots are
named as interposition time slots. The traffic is also divided
into small data accommodated by single time slot and big data
which cant be entertained by a single time slot. The length of
the superframe is kept adaptive depending on the traffic type.
Superframe structure consists of starting and ending beacons,
optional broadcast, CAP1 and CAP2 [9], in between these,
couple of inactive periods along with interposition time slots
are used. Interposition time slot is further subdivided into two
portions, first one is used for emergency data and second for
acknowledgement. CSMA/CA is adopted for both CAP1 and
CAP2 periods.
2.7 2R-MAC
2R-MAC segregates the sensors data into regular or periodic
traffic and burst traffic. Hence provides two round reservations
for time slots allotment by sink node. Data is proclaimed as
burst when usual traffic is being monitored for long interval
from prescribed range. Superframe of 2R-MAC consists of
beacon followed by first and second round reservation periods
(FRRP and SRRP) and ends with sleep period [10]. FRRP
facilitates normal usual traffic and SRRP provides flexibility
of more slots allotment for burst traffic. Sensor node first
sends Connection Request Frame to sink node, containing its
usual traffic rate. Sink node responds with Connection
Assignment Frame, encompasses number of slots depending
upon the nodes arrival traffic rate. Moreover, as large number
of time slots desired for burst traffic, hence SRRP frame
request is used for more slots allotment.
3
2.8 A-TDMA
In A-TDMA [11] duty cycle is dynamically adjusted to
manage the harvested energy amount that is more than power
consumption. The Energy Harvested Unit (EHU) and Energy
Store Device (ESD) are added to the sensor nodes. The MAC
operation holds two phases: Link establishment process and
Wake-up service process. The link establishment process is
further divided into three periods, i-e setup period, waiting
period and beacon period.
In setup period all sensor nodes send their ID to the
sink/coordinator. Each node shuts all the components except
the power management system for energy harvesting and
hoarding, then it goes to the charging mode. When the stored
energy attains certain level E [11], nodes wake up and upload
sensed data for transmission. As each node has different
harvesting rate so the collision is avoided. Waiting period is
just used to inform the coordinator that the setup period is
over. The coordinator broadcast a beacon for synchronization
with all the nodes, and link establishment. In the wake up
process each frame consists of three periods, a control period,
an announcement period and data transmission period. Control
period utilizes TDMA, nodes are allotted with different slots
for request messages. The request messages consist of two
portions, one defines the sensor ID and other portion gives
information of harvested energy and data amount in the
sensors buffer. When the coordinator gathers all request
messages, it now has complete information of nodes data and
allocates time slots to nodes accordingly. Each node powers
ON its radio in its own slot only. Announcement period is used
to broadcast the transmission schedule for all nodes.
Announcement period consist sensor ID, number of assigned
slots and synchronization information. In the transmission
period actual sensed data and acknowledgements are
exchanged and the frame ends with the transmission period.
2.9 PA-MAC
PA-MAC [12] assigns time slots to sensor nodes dynamically,
according to data priority/urgency using the ISM (Industrial
Scientific and Medical) band 2.4 GHz. A dedicated Beacon
Channel (BC) and Data Channel (DC) are employed, BC for
control data and DC for nodes data respectively. Traffic is
prioritized from higher to lower as Emergency traffic P 1, On-
Demand traffic P2, Normal traffic P3 and Non- Medical traffic
P4 accordingly. PA-MAC divides CAP period into four phases,
each phase identifies the priority level of traffic. By using
these phases, QoS is achieved with less power utilization and
avoiding delay too. The coordinator controls each phase
lengths variation accordingly. Emergency/urgent data is
transmitted in any available phase, while for other priority
levels, channel can be accessed as: P2 can access channel in
phase 2~4, for P3 phase 3~4 can be utilized and P 4 can only
transmit in phase 4. It uses the same CAP (Contention Access
Period), CFP (Contention Free Period) and GTS (Guaranteed
Time Slot) approaches to transfer control messages and nodes
data as IEEE 802.15.4 defines.
2.10 TAD-MAC
TAD-MAC (Traffic Aware Dynamic MAC) works as self-
adaptive wake-up scheduling for latency and energy
 4

optimization. This protocol works in two phases, before 3. Comparative Analysis

convergence (Evaluation phase) and after convergence. In the
The energy efficient characteristics of MAC protocols
first phase every sensor node waits for beacon, and beacon
discussed in previous section are organized in the following
contains each nodes ID. The beacon destined node, starts
two tables. The Protocols are listed in both tables in the same
transmitting to coordinator, while other nodes waits for their
order as presented in section 2, Table 1 provides a brief
corresponding beacon. The coordinator manages its Iwu (wake-
comparison of the presented protocols with key advantages
up interval), after some beacons/wake-ups, depending upon the
and limitations extracted from the published articles. Their
traffic it catches from the sensor nodes. In second phase the
merits and demerits are listed according to the gained
coordinator has now adapted its Iwu by keeping the idle
knowledge from their respective papers.
listening at minimum level. TAD-MAC is receiver-initiated
mechanism [13], the coordinator approximates the traffic load
and on the basis of this approximation it adapts the wake-up
interval for the purpose of synchronization with the transmit
nodes data transmission time. As a result next wake-up time is
calculated, that is used by the coordinator. For traffic
estimation a Traffic Status Register (TSR) is introduced to
store the status of the coming traffic. The receiving node when
wakes-up, it transmits a wake-up beacon, after that it checks Table 1: Key Advantages and Limitations of energy efficient
the channel whether it receives data or not and updates its TSR MAC Protocols
accordingly.

Table 2 provides a tabular summary of the characteristics of

protocols like, the topology used, energy efficiency,
QoS/Reliability, whether synchronization is required or not for
the protocol operation and many others.

Table 2: Characteristics of energy efficient MAC Protocols
4. Future Work
There are two directions for future work. First, we try to
remove the limitations of the presented protocols given in table
1, and second is to add some or all of the deficient
characteristics to the given protocols tabulated in table 2. As in
table 1 the protocols are compared with some other protocols
like IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE 802.15.6 etc, it is desirable to
compare all these protocols with each other to make the
scenario more clear for the upcoming researchers.
5. Conclusion
Energy efficiency is the main concern of WBAN MAC
protocols. It is important to design an energy efficient MAC
protocol to enhance the lifetime of the Wireless Body Area
network, as most of the energy is consumed in the
communication process. It is the radio that make
communication possible among the nodes, and MAC layer is
responsible to decide when and how to transmit the data
packets, keeping energy factor in check. This paper
investigates some energy efficient MAC protocols and
discusses their advantages and limitations by comparing with
given protocols and provides some of the characteristics of the
aforementioned protocols.
5
References
1. Cavallari, R., Martelli, F., Rosini, R., Buratti, C. and
Verdone, R. "A survey on wireless body area networks:
technologies and design challenges".IEEE Communications
Surveys & Tutorials, 16-3, pp.1635-1657, 2014.
2. Chen, M., Gonzalez, S., Vasilakos, A., Cao, H. and
Leung, V.C.. Body area networks: "A survey. Mobile networks
and applications", 16-2, pp.171-193, 2011.
3. Langendoen, K. "Medium access control in wireless
sensor networks.Medium access control in wireless
networks", 2, pp.535-560, 2008.
4. Chen, G.T., Chen, W.T. and Shen, S.H, 2L-MAC: "A
MAC protocol with two-layer interference mitigation in
wireless body area networks for medical applications". In 2014
IEEE International Conference on Communications ICC pp.
3523-3528. IEEE, June. 2014.
5. Huang, W. and Quek, T.Q, "Adaptive CSMA/CA MAC
protocol to reduce inter-WBAN interference for wireless body
area networks". In 2015 IEEE 12th International Conference
on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks pp. 1-6.
IEEE, June, 2015.
6. Hossain, M.U., Kalyan, M., Rana, M.R. and Rahman,
M.O. "Multi-dimensional traffic adaptive energy-efficient
MAC protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks".
 6

In Strategic Technology IFOST, 2014 9th International Forum DTN, MANETs, Vehicular Networks, Routing, and
on pp. 161-165. IEEE, October, 2014. Protocol Design.
E-mail: adil_2engr@hotmail.com
7. Jinbao, Z. and Lei, C. "Energy-efficient multipriority
MAC of wireless body area network". In General Assembly Wajid Ullah Khan is currently
and Scientific Symposium URSI GASS, 2014 XXXIth URSI pp.
working as Lecturer in
1-4. IEEE, Aug, 2014.
department of Computing and
8. Shu, M., Yuan, D., Zhang, C., Wang, Y. and Chen, C. Technology, Abasyn University
"A MAC protocol for medical monitoring applications of Peshawar campus, Pakistan. He
wireless body area networks". Sensors,15-6, pp.12906-12931, has completed his MS degree in
2015. Telecommunication and
Networking from Abasyn
9. Zhang, C., Wang, Y., Liang, Y., Shu, M. and Chen, C. University, Peshawar, Pakistan in 2015. He received his
"An Energy-Efficient MAC Protocol for Medical Emergency BS degree in Information Technology from University
Monitoring Body Sensor Networks". Sensors, 16-3, p.385, of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan in 2012. His research
2016.
interests include mobile ad hoc network, wireless body
10. Yang, L., Li, C., Song, Y. and Yuan, X. "An Energy-
area networks and sensor networks.
Efficient 2R MAC Based on IEEE 802.15. 6 for Health E-mail: arbabwajid.ullah@abasyn.edu.pk
Monitoring". In 2015 IEEE Globecom Workshops pp. 1-6.
IEEE, Dec, 2015. Samiullah is currently pursuing
his MS degree in Software
11. Qi, X., Wang, K., Yue, D., Shu, L., Liu, Y. and Zhao, H, Engineering from University of
"Adaptive TDMA-based MAC protocol in energy harvesting Engineering and Technology
wireless body area network for mobile health". In Industrial Peshawar, Pakistan. He received
Electronics Society, IECON 2015-41st Annual Conference of his BS degree in Computer
the IEEE, pp. 004175-004180. IEEE, Nov, 2015.
Science from Virtual University
of Pakistan in 2014. His
12. Bhandari, S. and Moh, S. "A Priority-Based Adaptive
MAC Protocol for Wireless Body Area research interests include
Networks". Sensors, 16-3, p.401, 2016. wireless body area networks and sensor networks.
E-mail: eng.sami247@gmail.com
13. Alam, M.M., Hamida, E.B., Berder, O., Menard, D. and
Sentieys, O. "A Heuristic Self-Adaptive Medium Access Faisal Naeem is currently
Control for Resource-Constrained WBAN Systems". IEEE working as Lecture in Abasyn
Access, 4, pp.1287-1300, 2016. University. He has completed his
MS in Electrical Engineering
14. Liu, B., Yan, Z. and Chen, C.W, "CA-MAC: A hybrid from NWFP UET , PESHAWAR.
context-aware MAC protocol for wireless body area
He received his bachelors in
networks". In e-Health Networking Applications and Services-
Healthcom, 2011 13th IEEE International Conference pp. Telecommunication Engineering
213-216. IEEE, June, 2011. from NUCES-FAST. His
research area includes Delay
Tolerant Networks , Wireless Body Area Network and
Smart Grids.
Adil Sheraz is a postgraduate E-mail: faisal.naeem45@gmail.com
student in the Department of
Computing and Technology, Syed Irfan Ullah received
Abasyn University, his master degree from
Peshawar, Pakistan. He University of Peshawar and
completed his BS degree in received his MS and PhD
Telecommunications from from Islamic International
Preston Institute of University Islamabad. His
Management Science and field of research is Data and
Technology (PIMSAT) Karachi Network Security, Secure
in 2013. His research interests include WSNs, WBANs, algorithm Design, Securing

data on Private and public channels, Secure
Communication, Cryptanalysis and Breaking code.
Currently, he is doing his job as Assistant Professor in
Abasyn University Peshawar and is supervising MS and
PhD research Projects.
E-mail: syed.irfanullah@abasyn.edu.pk
Abdus Salam is currently
working as Head of
Department of Computing and
Technology at Abasyn
University Peshawar campus,
Pakistan. He received his PhD
Degree in Computer Science
from International University,
Islamabad. He also received
his MSc in Computer Science
from Quaid-e-Azam
University, Islamabad. His research interest include
Cluster Computing, WSN, Wireless Body Area
Networks, and Artificial Intelligence.
E-mail: dr.salam@abasyn.edu.pk
Arshad Farhad currently
working as Lecturer in
department of computer,
COMSATS Institute of
Information Technology,
Sahiwal, Pakistan. He has
completed his MS degree in
Telecommunication and
Networking from Bahria
University, Islamabad,
Pakistan in 2015 with distinction as a Silver Medalist.
He received his BS degree in Information Technology
from University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan in
2012. His research interests include design and
performance evaluation of communication protocols for
wireless ad hoc, wireless body area networks and sensor
networks.
E-mail: arshadfarhad@ymail.com
7
Mohammad Haseeb Zafar
received the BSc degree in
Electrical Engineering from the
University of Engineering and
Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan
in 1996, the MS degree in
Telecommunications and
Computers from the Department
of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, George
Washington University,
Washington DC, USA in 2003 and the PhD degree in
Wireless Networks from the Department of Electronic
and Electrical Engineering, University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow, UK in 2009. From 2011 to 2012, he was a
postdoctoral researcher at the University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow, UK. He has more than 18 years of teaching,
research and industrial experience. He is currently a
Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering
and Secretary Board of Advanced Studies & Research at
the University of Engineering and Technology,
Peshawar, Pakistan. His research interests include
WSNs, MANETs, Wireless Mesh Networks, WPANs,
Routing, Network Traffic Estimation, Smart Grids,
Software Defined Networks, Genetic Algorithms, Data
Centre Architectures, Machine 2 Machine
Communications, Femtocells, ITS and Signal
Processing.
E-mail: m.h.zafar@ieee.org
haseeb@uetpeshawar.edu.pk