A Soft Computing Approach for Data Routing in Hospital Area Networks (HAN)

This paper proposes an alternative model to deliver vital signs of patients in a hospital indoor environment where a large number of patients exist and the traffic generated rapidly changes over time using Body Area Network (BAN). The methodology for finding an optimal path includes a meta-heuristic that combines ANT Colony Optimization (ACO). The authors propose an ACO based framework for monitoring data originating from a BAN to improve network life, energy and load balancing of the overall network. Since the traffic generated by BANs on the network changes with time, finding a shortest path is important for Hospital Area Network. In this paper, the authors implemented an ACO based method and have carried out simulations using OMNeT++ to prove that the proposed method can find a better solution than conventional methods.