An optimized security solution based on trust value for multithreaded wireless body area network communication

A novel neighbour network discovery mechanism targeted especially for wireless body area networks (WBANs) is defined and analysed in this paper. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard 802.15.6 and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) technical committee SmartBAN define physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) specifications for packet-based short-range communications in WBANs. Neither the aforementioned standards provides a solution for discovery of operating WBAN networks by another operating WBAN using the same standard specifications in near vicinity. The proposed method provides a SmartBAN-compliant mechanism to discover other neighbouring SmartBAN networks while maintaining uninterrupted operations of both the wireless network carrying out the discovery and the wireless networks to be discovered. A SmartBAN network operates in two physical channels: a control channel (CCH) and a data channel (DCH). The key feature of the mechanism is the utilisation of the Inactive Periods of the discovering SmartBAN’s DCH by alternating the Inactive Period durations for scanning CCH beacons of the target SmartBAN. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the proposed mechanism outperforms a mechanism in which the scan is performed in a fixed cyclical mode in terms of probability of discovery and discovery time. Currently, the discovery mechanism is under consideration for the revision of MAC specifications in TC SmartBAN.

Physiological parameters from various wireless body area network (WBAN) sensors such as Electrocardiography (ECG), Electromyography (EMG), Electroencephalography (EEG), Electrooculography (EOG) sensors are monitored for detecting sleep apnoea of a patient. In WBAN communication, those sensors' signals are affected by fading because of reflection, diffraction, energy absorption, shadowing by body, body movement, clothes and the surrounding environment. In traditional point-to-point WBAN communication systems, sensors data are sent directly to the base station which is very susceptible to fading. To combat fading effect, this paper proposes a novel MIMO-based multi-sensor cooperation using energy efficient network coding technique apt in tiny WBAN sensor for sleep apnoea monitoring. We investigate the performance in terms of bit error rate (BER) of the proposed technique in comparisons to direct and cooperative communication approach. The simulation results show that, cooperative communication strategy in WBAN channel provides superior performance compared to non-cooperative communication.

A power-aware 2-covered path routing for wireless body area networks with variable transmission ranges

Chapter 7 - WBAN: Driving e-healthcare Beyond Telemedicine to Remote Health Monitoring: Architecture and Protocols

Power efficient communication in a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is critical for successful system deployment. Stringent constraints of size and weight of sensors significantly limit available sensor power, particularly in the case of implantable sensors. This paper discusses and analyses methods that could be used to improve power efficiency of implantable WBAN systems, with focus on the Wake Up Radio (WUR), which allows power efficient listening of wireless channel. The paper presents analysis of existing hardware and design trade offs in WUR implementation.

The IEEE Std 802.15.6 is an international standard for wireless body area networks (WBANs). It contains many aspects of communications, and also provides security services, since some communications in WBANs can carry sensitive information. In this standard, the password authenticated association is a protocol for two participants to identify each other and establish a new master key based on a pre-shared short password. However, recent research shows that this protocol is vulnerable to several attacks. In this paper, we propose an improved protocol which can resist all of these attacks. Moreover, the improved protocol alleviates computational burden on one side of the two participants, the node, which is usually less powerful compared with the other side, the hub.

Wireless body area networks (WBANs), as a promising health-care system, can provide tremendous benefits for timely and continuous patient care and remote health monitoring. Owing to the restriction of communication, computation and power in WBANs, cloud-assisted WBANs, which offer more reliable, intelligent, and timely health-care services for mobile users and patients, are receiving increasing attention. However, how to aggregate the health data multifunctionally and efficiently is still an open issue to the cloud server (CS). In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving and multifunctional health data aggregation (PPM-HDA) mechanism with fault tolerance for cloud-assisted WBANs. With PPM-HDA, the CS can compute multiple statistical functions of users’ health data in a privacy-preserving way to offer various services. In particular, we first propose a multifunctional health data additive aggregation scheme (MHDA+) to support additive aggregate functions, such as average and variance. Then, we put forward MHDA $^{\oplus }$ as an extension of MHDA+ to support nonadditive aggregations, such as min/max, median, percentile, and histogram. The PPM-HDA can resist differential attacks, which most existing data aggregation schemes suffer from. The security analysis shows that the PPM-HDA can protect users’ privacy against many threats. Performance evaluations illustrate that the computational overhead of MHDA+ is significantly reduced with the assistance of CSs. Our MHDA $^{\oplus }$ scheme is more efficient than previously reported min/max aggregation schemes in terms of communication overhead when the applications require large plaintext space and highly accurate data.

A novel dipole-Yagi antenna is presented with pattern and frequency reconfigurable capability. The novel structure is based from Yagi-Uda antenna, consist of dipole as a main radiator and four parasitic metal strips. The parasitic metal strips can be formed to function as part of the radiator, reflector, or director by means of switches. The switches are located at specific position. By bridging the main radiator to the metal strips, frequency reconfiguration can be achieved. Whilst by bridging the strips itself, will results in pattern changing. Three switchable patterns at 2.5 GHz and four switched band at 0.98, 1.5, 2.1, and 2.5 GHz are demonstrated. This antenna exhibits −10 dB return loss and 76–79% efficiency. Good agreement between measured and simulated results is observed. The antenna might be useful for wireless body area networks communication system. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 55:447–450, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.27323

The need for secure group communication is increasingly evident in a wide variety of governmental, commercial, and Internet communities. Secure group key management is concerned with the methods of issuing and distributing group keys, and the management of those keys over a period of time. To provide perfect secrecy, a central group key manager (GKM) has to perform group rekeying for every join or leave request. Fast rekeying is crucial to an application's performance that has large group size, experiences frequent joins and leaves, or where the GKM is hosted by a group member. Examples of such applications are interactive military simulation, secure video and audio broadcasting, and secure peer-to-peer networks. Traditionally, the rekeying is performed periodically for the batch of requests accumulated during an inter-rekey period. The use of a logical key hierarchy (LKH) by a GKM has been introduced to provide scalable rekeying. If the GKM maintains a LKH of degree d and height h, such that the group size n ≤ dh, and the batch size is R requests, a rekeying requires the GKM to regenerate O(R × h) keys and to perform O(d × R × h) keys encryptions for the new keys distribution. The LKH approach provided a GKM rekeying cost that scales to the logarithm of the group size, however, the number of encryptions increases with increased LKH degree, LKH height, or the batch size. In this dissertation, we introduce a framework for scalable and efficient secure group key management that outperforms the original LKH approach. The framework has six components as follows. First, we present a software model for providing secure group key management that is independent of the application, the security mechanism, and the communication protocol. Second, we focus on a LKH-based GKM and introduce a secure key distribution technique, in which a rekeying requires the GKM to regenerate O( R × h) keys. Instead of encryption, we propose a novel XOR-based key distribution technique, namely XORBP, which performs an XOR operation between keys, and uses random byte patterns (BPs) to distribute the key material in the rekey message to guard against insider attacks. Our experiments show that the XORBP LKH approach substantially reduces a rekeying computation effort by more than 90%. Third, we propose two novel LKH batch rekeying protocols . The first protocol maintains a balanced LKH (B+-LKH) while the other maintains an unbalanced LKH (S-LKH). If a group experiences frequent leaves, keys are deleted form the LKH and maintaining a balanced LKH becomes crucial to the rekeying's process performance. In our experiments, the use of a B+-LKH by a GKM, compared to a S-LKH, is shown to substantially reduce the number of LKH nodes (i.e., storage), and the number of regenerated keys per a rekeying by more than 50%. Moreover, the B +-LKH performance is shown to be bounded with increased group dynamics. Fourth, we introduce a generalized rekey policy that can be used to provide periodic rekeying as well as other versatile rekeying conditions. Fifth, to support distributed group key management, we identify four distributed group-rekeying protocols between a set of peer rekey agents. Finally, we discuss a group member and a GKM's recovery after a short failure time.

A wireless body area network (WBAN) consists of a single coordinator and multiple low-power sensors to monitor the biological signals and functions of the human body. Due to the highly mobile and social nature of WBANs, the performance of the individual WBANs could be degraded due to the adverse co-channel interference that results from their uncoordinated coexistence with other nearby wireless networks. Like other wireless networks, energy and spectrum in WBANs are both scarce resources. In fact, the limited spectrum resource is the cause of competition among WBANs and leads to interference. Dynamic and efficacious energy and interference management taking into account the channel state and traffics are both crucial and substantial to further upgrade the capacity and enhance the goodness of user experience. In addition to the co-channel interference, the individual communication links between the body-mounted sensors and the WBAN’s coordinator experience high signal attenuation and distortion due to the nonhomogeneous nature of the human body tissue. In this chapter, the issues related to the coexistence among WBANs and between WBANs and other wireless networks will be analyzed. A comparative review of the radio co-channel interference mitigation and avoidance techniques in the literature will be provided. Furthermore, we show that the existing solutions fall short from achieving satisfactory performance, and outline open problems that warrant more investigation by the research community.

In this paper, we study the possibility and the performance of PSSK(Phase Shift Silence Keying) and PSPM(Phase Shift Pulse-position Modulation) technique for low power communication. Every Mary PSK(Phase Shift Keying) symbol of PSSK that was proposed for low power communication in WBAN(Wireless Body Area Network) has the silence period for a half period of symbol. Similarly, PSPM is a kind of PSK modulation combined with PPM(Pulse Position Modulation). The bandwidth efficiency of PSPM is lower than conventional PSK and PSSK, but the power efficiency increases. Also, there is the advantage of hamming distance gain. It can get from lower modulation level of PSPM modulation technique. At the last of this paper, we will compare the BER performance of QPSK, PSSK and PSPM data acquired from the sea trials.

In this paper, a decision feedback equalizer(DFE) is applied to the PSSK(Phase Shift Silence Keying) and PSPM (Phase Shift Pulse-position Modulation) for low-power communication in underwater sensor network. All of the M-ary PSK(Phase Shift Keying) symbol of PSSK that was proposed for low power communication in WBAN(Wireless Body Area Network) has the silence duration for a half period of symbol. Similarly, PSPM is also a kind of PSK modulation which is combined with PPM(Pulse Position Modulation). The bandwidth efficiency of PSPM is lower than conventional PSK and PSSK, but the power efficiency better than those methods. However, the problem of PSSK/PSPM is so erratic to find PSK signal duration because of the delay spreads. If the decision for the signal position is wrong, then the error probability of PSSK/PSPM is significantly increased. For this reason, we applied to these modulations the DFE and compared the BER performances about QPSK, PSSK and PSPM data which is acquired from the sea trials.

In recent years, interests in the application of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) have grown considerably. A WBAN can be used to develop a patient monitoring system which offers flexibility and mobility to patients. Use of a WBAN will also allow the flexibility of setting up a remote monitoring system via either the internet or an intranet. For such medical systems it is very important that a WBAN can collect and transmit data reliably, and in a timely manner to the monitoring entity. In this paper we examine the performance of an IEEE802.15.4/Zigbee MAC based WBAN operating in different patient monitoring environment. We study the performance of a remote patient monitoring system using an OPNET based simulation model.

The wireless body area network (WBAN) is considered as one of the emerging wireless techniques in the healthcare system. Typical WBAN sensors, especially implantable sensors, have limited power capability, which restricts their wide applications in the medical environment. In addition, it is necessary for the healthcare center (HC) to broadcast significant notifications to different patient groups. Considering the above issues, in this paper, the novel practical WBAN system model with group message broadcasting is built. Subsequently, a secure and efficient group key management protocol with cooperative sensor association is proposed. In the proposed protocol, the Chinese remainder theorem (CRT) is employed for group key management between HC and the personal controller (PC), which also supports batch key updating. The proposed sensor association scheme is motivated by coded cooperative data exchange (CCDE). The formal security proofs are presented, indicating that the proposed protocol can achieve the desired security properties. Moreover, performance analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol is efficient compared with state-of-the-art group key management protocols.

Power efficient ultra-wideband based wireless communication for wireless body area network applications