A Survey of Routing Protocols for Low Power Sensor Networks

Abstract

A Wireless Body Area Sensor Network (WBASN) is combination of a set of sensor nodes, placed on/near or inside a human body. Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks (WBASN) is a developing technology which exploits wireless sensor nodes to implement real-time wearable health monitoring of patients to enhance independent living. These sensor nodes can be worn externally to monitor multiple bioparameters (such as blood oxygen saturation (SpO2 ), blood pressure and heart activity) of multiple patients at a vital location in the hospital. Hence the mission of the WBASN is very critical, increasing the lifetime of nodes is essential in order to maintain both practicality and effectiveness. There are number of routing protocols for WBASN. This paper will discuss the architecture of WBASN. Moreover, this work gives detailed literature review of many different routing protocols belongs to the field of WBAN and also discuss their strengths and weaknesses.