A Cooperative Routing Algorithm to Increase QoS in Wireless E-Healthcare Systems

The recent increased interest in distributed and flexible wireless pervasive applications has drawn great attention to WNCS (Wireless Networked Control Systems) architectures based on WSANs (Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks) and the resulting Quality of Service obtained in specific applications. Particularly, in wireless E-Healthcare systems based on WSANs, providing certain QoS specifications is crucial for the actuators as they perform actions based on the vital data received from sensors. This chapter is concerned with the performance evaluation of a cooperative routing algorithm QBAR (Queue Based Ad hoc Routing algorithm) for wireless E-Healthcare systems. Simulations have been carried out in order to quantify the impact of the proposed algorithm on the overall network performance, and a comparison with the existing AODV algorithm is presented. The algorithm performances are validated by the Matlab/Simulink-based simulator, TrueTime, which facilitates the co-simulation of controller task execution in real-time kernels and in a wireless network environment. The simulation results highlight that “cooperation” strategies between wireless healthcare devices can strongly improve the reliability of the wireless network, and hence, they are suitable and rewarding for the management of the future generation of E-Healthcare systems.