Routing Protocols in Wireless Body Area Networks: Architecture, Challenges, and Classification

The wireless body area network (WBAN) is a branch of the wireless sensor network (WSN) intended for tracking essential patients’ physiological signals and transferring this knowledge to the coordinator. During the routing of data, WBANs encounter critical routing problems like WSNs. Moreover, the particular constraints of WBANs make it more challenging that they need to be addressed. This survey article categorizes and briefly analyzes a range of current routing methods utilized in WBANs. The routing protocol is essential to the creation of any efficient and reliable wireless body area network due to a limited size of battery in the body sensor nodes. A comparison study of numerous routing protocols has been made in this paper, which is helpful in selecting the optimal routing protocol for the application being targeted. The article describes the WBAN architecture and addresses numerous challenges in the context of successful WBAN routing. In this paper, several existing WBAN routing methods are presented which are influenced by network structure, energy, quality of service (QoS), node temperature, human position, node transmission range, and other factors. The protocols, including cross-layered, cluster-based, QoS-aware, postural movement-based, temperature-aware, postural movement-based, and routing protocols, are given in an expressive taxonomy. Different routing protocols that have already been developed for WBANs are compared with more advanced protocols. The pros and cons of each protocol are looked at based on factors like delay, packet delivery ratio, and energy use. The researchers can utilize this survey paper as a reference for studying various routing protocols particularly in the medical and healthcare systems.