Q-Learning-Based Optimized Routing in Biomedical Wireless Sensor Networks

ABSTRACT

The information regarding any abnormal behaviour in the physiological parameters of a patient should reach the remote healthcare personal immediately in real time, so as to take corrective action promptly and save the life. Biomedical wireless sensor network (BWSN) plays a vital role in this connection because it can be attached to the patient without causing any inconvenience to him/her and can communicate to any remote healthcare office without any delay. BWSN consists of individual nodes to collect the patient's information and communicate it to the remote health centre if the value of sensed signal is beyond normal range. The nodes deployed within the patients form a BWSN, and the network has to send the information from the source to the remote sink in an efficient way. The network should choose an optimized path for this communication, so that the node’s lifetime is increased. This paper presents a Q-learning-algorithm-based routing concept to route the sensed information if required from the individual node to the remote healthcare station. Simulations are made with a set of mobile biomedical wireless sensor nodes within an area of 100 m × 100 m flat space operating for 600 seconds of simulation time. Results show that the Q-learning-based approach requires less time to route the packet from the source node to the destination remote station.

KEYWORDS:

• Biomedical wireless sensor network
• Optimization
• Q-learning
• Routing

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jose Anand

Jose Anand received his diploma from the State Board of Technical Education, Tamil Nadu, in 1995, Bachelor of Engineering degree from Institution of Engineers (INDIA), Calcutta, in 2003, Master of Engineering in Embedded System Technologies from Anna University, Chennai, in 2006, Master of Arts in Public Administration from Annamalai University in 2000, and Master of Business Administration from Alagappa University in 2007. He is a member of CSI, IEI, IET, IETE, ISTE, and INS. He received State third rank in Bachelor of Engineering. He published many papers in national/international conferences and journals. He also published various polytechnic subjects in electrical, electronics, and computer science disciplines.

E-mail: [email protected]

J. Raja Paul Perinbam

J. Raja Paul Perinbam received his BE and MSc (Eng.) degrees from Madras University, India. He got his doctorate degree from IIT, Madras, India, in the year 1984. He was with Anna University, Chennai, India, as professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering and head of the Department. of Media Sciences for more than 30 years. Currently, he is working in KCG College of Technology, Chennai, India, as professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering. His field of research is VLSI design and embedded systems. He has successfully guided more than 10 research scholars in this area.

E-mail: [email protected]

D. Meganathan

D. Meganathan is working as an assistant professor in the Department of Electronics Engineering, MIT Campus, Anna University, since 2003. He has been associated with the research team of Prof. Axel Jantsch in KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, during his post-doctoral research work. He has received his doctorate degree from Anna University and masters from PSG technology Coimbatore, India. He has received EURINDIA fellowship for pursuing post-doctoral research work. He has received IE(I) Prize for securing the highest marks amongst the successful candidates in Win’99 AMIE Exams. He has published more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed internal journals and conference proceedings. His areas of interest include analogue IC design, nanoelectronics, novel semiconductor devices, low-power VLSI circuit design, and NOC design and reconfigurable architectures.

E-mail: [email protected]