HBC Transmission Policies for Energy Harvesting Empowered ECG Nodes

The Internet of Bodies is a body-centric network that connects smart devices to enable real-time monitoring of physiological data, including early detection of cardiovascular diseases through electrocardiograms (ECG) monitoring. In contrast to power-intensive RF transceivers in many ECG wearables, Human Body Communication (HBC) offers an energy-efficient (EE) and secure alternative, utilizing the body as a communication channel. This paper explores the functionality of an IoB sensor node designed for ECG monitoring, leveraging HBC and incorporating energy harvesting techniques to ensure sustained power. It introduces a scheme that utilizes ECG signal characteristics to identify sensing and transmission time durations, and it formulates an optimization problem within a Markov Decision Process framework. Given the battery and computational power constraint of IoB nodes, we propose lightweight and EE policies. Simulations confirm their benefits over myopic policies in terms of maximizing node lifetime and optimizing energy utilization, making them a promising solution for IoB systems operating under dynamic energy arrival rates.