Real-Time Health Monitoring in WBANs using Ensemble Metaheuristic-Driven Machine Learning Routing Protocol (MDML-RP)

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are helpful for remote health monitoring, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the limited batteries of bio-sensors, energy-efficient routing is vital to achieve load-balancing and prolong the network's lifetime. Although many routing techniques have been presented for WBANs, they were designed for an application, and their performance may be degraded in other applications. In this paper, an ensemble Metaheuristic-Driven Machine Learning Routing Protocol (MDML-RP) is introduced as an adaptive real-time remote health monitoring in WBANs. The motivation behind this technique is to utilize the superior route optimization solutions offered by metaheuristics and to integrate them with the real-time routing capability of machine learning. The proposed method involves two phases: offline model tuning and online routing. During the offline pre-processing step, a metaheuristic algorithm based on the whale optimization algorithm (WOA) is used to optimize routes across various WBAN configurations. By applying WOA for multiple WBANs, a comprehensive dataset is generated. This dataset is then used to train and test a machine learning regressor that is based on support vector regression (SVR). Next, the optimized MDML-RP model is applied as an adaptive real-time protocol, which can efficiently respond to just-in-time requests in new, previously unseen WBANs. Simulation results in various WBANs demonstrate the superiority of the MDML-RP model in terms of application-specific performance measures when compared with the existing heuristic, metaheuristic, and machine learning protocols. The findings indicate that the proposed MDML-RP model achieves noteworthy improvement rates across various performance metrics when compared to the existing techniques, with an average improvement of 42.3% for the network lifetime, 15.4% for reliability, 31.3% for path loss, and 31.7% for hot-spot temperature.

Hierarchical energy efficient secure routing protocol for optimal route selection in wireless body area networks

Growth in technology has witnessed the comfort of an individual in domestic and professional life. Although, such existence was not able to meet the medical emergencies during the pandemic COVID-19 and during other health monitoring scenarios. This demand is due to the untouched Quality of Service network parameters like throughput, reliability, security etc. Hence, remote health monitoring systems for the patients who have undergone a medical surgery, bed ridden patients, autism affected subjects etc is in need that considers postural change and then forward to the caretaker in hospitals through wireless body area networks (WBAN). Security in these data are very important as it deals with the life of a subject. In this work, a Hierarchical Energy Efficient Secure Routing protocol (HEESR) is proposed that categorizes the deployed body nodes in to direct node and relay node based on the threshold vale. Unlike other conventional protocols the cluster head selection is based on the energy levels and the traffic priority data like critical and non-critical data, followed by an optimal route to forward the acquired data is identified and the data is compressed using Huffman encoding technique and encrypted using asymmetric cryptographic algorithm for secure data transmission. This protocol mainly appends security and routing efficiency in a hierarchical pattern through data prioritization and out performs the other conventional routing protocols by yielding a better energy consumption of 6%, throughput 92% and security of 93%, which has balanced the packet drop rate considerably and deliver the data within the stipulated time period. © 2022 The Authors

Hierarchical energy efficient secure routing protocol for optimal route selection in wireless body area networks

Growth in technology has witnessed the comfort of an individual in domestic and professional life. Although, such existence was not able to meet the medical emergencies during the pandemic COVID-19 and during other health monitoring scenarios. This demand is due to the untouched Quality of Service network parameters like throughput, reliability, security etc. Hence, remote health monitoring systems for the patients who have undergone a medical surgery, bed ridden patients, autism affected subjects etc is in need that considers postural change and then forward to the caretaker in hospitals through wireless body area networks (WBAN).Security in these data are very important as it deals with the life of a subject. In this work, a Hierarchical Energy Efficient Secure Routing protocol (HEESR) is proposed that categorizes the deployed body nodes in to direct node and relay node based on the threshold vale. Unlike other conventional protocols the cluster head selection is based on the energy levels and the traffic priority data like critical and non-critical data, followed by an optimal route to forward the acquired data is identified and the data is compressed using Huffman encoding technique and encrypted using asymmetric cryptographic aalgorithm for secure data transmission. This protocol mainly appends security and routing efficiency in a hierarchical pattern through data prioritization and out performs the other conventional routing protocols by yielding a better energy consumption of 6%, throughput 92% and security of 93%, which has balanced the packet drop rate considerably and deliver the data within the stipulated time period.

Design a sturdy and secure authentication scheme capable of early detection of COVID-19 patients using WBANs

COVID-19 was first reported in China Wuhan and rapidly grown up to more than 58 countries based on the World Health Organization (WHO). Well ahead of any health emergency, the health care server has the ability to access these data via authorization and then s/he performs necessary actions. In order to protect medical data from malicious activities, authentication is the starting point for this. Authentication systems represent a network support factor to reduce ineffective users and radically eliminate phishing because authentication determines the identity of the real user. Many schemes and technologies have been suggested for authentication in wireless body area networks (WBANs). In this paper, we suggest a strong dynamic password authentication system for WBANs. We adopt a (different/new) way to calculate a password and make it coherent and dynamic for each login session. Our work also provides additional security properties to get rid of hub node impersonation attacks and resolve key escrow issues. Our scheme resist fishing attach which keep patient from any illegal change of drugs. By comparison, the proposed scheme is considered active and has strong security based on formal security analysis tools such as AVISPA. © 2022 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science. All rights reserved.

The Challenges in Implementing Wearable Antennas for Large-Scale Health Monitoring

The rise of antenna technology, smartphones, and the Internet-of-things (IoT) has enabled wearable antennas for wireless communication between implantable devices such as pacemakers, infusion pumps, etc., and external devices for health monitoring. This work describes the key challenges that need to be addressed for such wireless body area network (WBAN) technologies to be integrated into large-scale health monitoring programs. These include the miniaturization of antennas, fabrication techniques to enable mass production, and methods to protect patients from data infringement and hackers. Furthermore, the role of wearable and implantable antennas is pivotal to realize devices for continuous healthcare monitoring especially during Pandemic situations such as Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19). © 2021 IEEE.

Analysis of Lightweight and Secure Two-Factor Authentication Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks in Health-Care IoT

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) play a paramount role in modern health-care systems and bring numerous benefits. Modern WBANs provide a promising service especially for elderly people suffering from heart disease, Alzheimer, etc., which enable them to live safely and independently. Medical institutions tend to use WBANs to provide real-time monitoring of remote patients outside hospitals, which helps saving their lives by means of instant and proper responses at emergency situations. However, in 2020, the world was affected by COVID-19 pandemic and thousands of new cases are discovered daily all over the world. The pandemic provoked a serious lack in professional staff and in many countries there were not enough beds in hospitals for patients with COVID-19 symptoms. This in turn increases the demand for WBANs, which can help medical institutions to withstand harmful consequences of the pandemic and to ensure regular patients monitoring. In this context, very recently, Fotouhi et al. proposed a new lightweight authentication scheme to secure patient's sensitive data in WBANs. The authors claimed that their scheme is secure against various known attacks and is efficient to be applied in practice. However, we analyze Fotouhi et al.'s scheme and find out that their scheme is prone to several attacks. In this paper, we point out the weaknesses associated with their proposed lightweight authentication scheme. © 2021 IEEE

Challenges and Developments in Secure Routing Protocols for Healthcare in WBAN: A Comparative Analysis.

The rise in life expectancy of humans, COVID-19 pandemic and growing cost of medical services has brought up huge challenges for the government and healthcare industry. Due to unhealthy lifestyle, there is an increased need for continual health monitoring and diagnosis of diseases. Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is attracted attention of researchers as various biosensors can be embedded in or worn on the body of human beings for the measurement of health parameters. The patient's health data is then sent wirelessly to the physician for health analysis. The biosensors used to measure physiological parameters have limited power due to its small size and hence smaller form factor. For the longevity of the network, it is imperative to transmit the data in an energy-efficient manner. Moreover, the health information of the patient is stringently private. Hence, the privacy and security of transmitted information needs to be ensured. It necessitates the development of effective, lightweight and secure routing protocols that provides security with minimal use of resources. This paper has identified the numerous security requirements in WBANs and has provided the extensive review on existing secure routing protocols reported in the literature. A comparative analysis of the various existing state-of-the art secure routing protocols and critical analysis based on security techniques along with different performance parameters has been presented.