Formal modeling and verification of a wireless body area network (WBAN) protocol: S-TDMA protocol

Abstract

WBANs integrate wearable and implanted devices with wireless communication and information processing systems to monitor the well-being of an individual. Various MAC (Medium Access Control) protocols with different objectives have been proposed for WBANs. The fact that any flaw in these critical systems may lead to the loss of one's life implies that testing and verifying MAC's protocols for such systems are on the higher level of importance. In this paper, we firstly propose a high-level formal and scalable model with timing aspects for a MAC protocol particularly designed for WBANs, named S-TDMA (Statistical frame based TDMA protocol). The protocol uses TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) bus arbitration, which requires temporal aspect modeling. Secondly, we propose a formal validation of several relevant properties such as deadlock freedom, fairness and mutual exclusion of this protocol at a high level of abstraction. The protocol was modeled using a composition of timed automata components, and verification was performed using a real-time model checker.