Olatinwo, Damilola D.Abu-Mahfouz, Adnan MohammedHancke, Gerhard P.Myburgh, Hermanus Carel2024-08-262024-08-262024D.D. Olatinwo, A.M. Abu-Mahfouz, G.P. Hancke and H.C. Myburgh, "Markov Decision Process Based Energy Aware MAC Protocol for IoT WBAN Systems," in IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 24, no. 17, pp. 27981-27997, doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2024.3426666.1530-437X (print)1558-1748 (online)10.1109/JSEN.2024.3426666http://hdl.handle.net/2263/97855Internet of Things (IoT) enabled WBAN systems play a crucial role in healthcare monitoring, enhancing patients’ well-being at an affordable cost. However, their primary challenge lies in energy constraints. To optimize the limited energy resources and extend the lifetime of devices within the network, a multi-channel MAC protocol with Markov decision process (MDP-HYMAC) is proposed. This protocol improves energy efficiency, throughput, and network lifetime, and minimizes delays by using separate channels for communication between biomedical devices and access points (APs). In addition, a Markov decision process is employed to stochastically model the systems’ transition states and explore optimal communication strategies between biomedical devices and APs. Furthermore, an adaptive power allocation scheme, a time-slot allocation scheme, and a back-off strategy are designed to minimize time-slot wastage, energy consumption, and delays. The proposed protocol outperforms the baseline methods by achieving significant improvements in energy efficiency from 4% to 22%. The findings of this research strongly indicate that the proposed protocol has the potential to significantly improve the performance of WBAN systems, particularly in the context of sustainable healthcare monitoring.en© 2024 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. This article has been accepted for publication in IEEE Sensors Journal. This is the author's version which has not been fully edited and content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/JSEN.2024.3426666.Wireless communicationBody area networksMedia access controlProtocolsEnergy efficiencyDelaysIEEE 802.15 standardHealthcare monitoringWireless body area network (WBAN)Internet of Things (IoT)Multi-channel MAC protocol designReinforcement learning (RL)Channel efficiencySDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructurePostprint Article