Energy-Efficient I-RAW: An Intelligent-Routing Solution for Wireless Body Area Networks

Recent advancements in sensing technology and the integration of electronic devices have given rise to a promising innovation called Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). This technology holds great potential to revolutionize healthcare by enabling remote health monitoring for patients not close to healthcare facilities. However, the sensor nodes placed on or beneath the skin to capture various physiological signals are limited by their battery life. This paper introduces the Intelligent-Routing Algorithm for WBANs (I-RAW) to address this challenge, designed to prolong these sensor nodes’ operational lifespan. The system uses two sinks on the patient’s front and rear body to gather data from sensor nodes arranged into clusters and relay information through a cluster head (CH). The Tunicate Swarm Algorithm (TSA) facilitates the cluster head selection, considering residual energy, average network energy, node-to-sink distance, path loss, and energy consumption rate. Using dual sinks helps mitigate network hot-spot issues by reducing the need for multi-hop communication. According to simulation data, I-RAW outperforms the Dual Sink technique, employing the DSCB protocol regarding stability and overall network lifespan. Furthermore, I-RAW outperforms other contemporary protocols across various performance metrics.