Priority schemes for life extension and data delivery in body area wireless sensor networks with cognitive radio capabilities

Wireless sensor networks have recently been used to monitor bioelectric signals generated by the human body. However, since the dimensions and capabilities of the network nodes are small and limited, a problem is generated inherently by the energy consumption and radioelectric interference. In view of this, we propose two priority schemes to improve the performance of the network. In the first one, we aim at increasing the system lifetime by reducing the number of transmissions of nodes with low energy levels. In the second scheme, we aim at conveying priority data to the sink node as fast and efficient as possible. In the former scheme, users can be monitored for long time periods considering a low data generation. On the other hand, the latter scheme allows expediting transmission of important data when energy efficiency is not relevant. In this article, we mathematically model, analyze, and study the performance of the system for both priority schemes considering cognitive radio capabilities to make efficient use of resources and limit the radioelectric interference when the network transmits both continuous monitoring and event detection information. Numerical results provided in this work allow a careful parameter selection for practical implementation of BANETs.