Abstract
In this paper, an efficient beamforming technique at the aggregator node in the patient wireless body area network (WBAN) is proposed to improve the communication performance with the gateway node using C-shaped switched-beam antenna arrays. This proposed technique provides high gain beams towards the gateway node which may be located indoor or outdoor based on the medical quarantine or isolation topology and help medical staff monitor patients with less contact and infection probability. Also, a semi-blind switched-beam algorithm is developed to both reduce the processing time required for beam selection and reduce the power loss due to the off-mainlobe orientation of the selected beam with the signal direction. The proposed technique is analyzed at different wearing scenarios and simulation results show that the received power levels are improved with as less as 0.3 dBm standard deviation which helps in extending the communication range between the WBAN aggregator and gateway nodes in the health monitoring system and also extend the battery lifetime at the patient WBAN. (C) 2020 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.