{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,30]],"date-time":"2026-04-30T04:08:31Z","timestamp":1777522111587,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":42,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,30]],"date-time":"2021-06-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1625011200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JSAN"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The MEDIcal WARNing (MEDIWARN) system continuously and automatically monitors the vital parameters of pre-intensive care hospitalized patients and, thanks to an intelligent processing system, provides the medical teams with a better understanding of their patients\u2019 clinical condition, thus enabling a prompt reaction to any change. Since the hospital units generally lack a wired infrastructure, a wireless network is required to collect sensor data in a server for processing purposes. This work presents the MEDIWARN communication system, addressing both the network architecture and a simple, lightweight and configurable routing protocol that fits the system requirements, such as the ability to offer path redundancy and mobility support without significantly increasing the network workload and latency. The novel protocol, called the MultiPath Routing Protocol for MEDIWARN (MP-RPM), was therefore designed as a solution to support low-latency reliable transmissions on a dynamic network while limiting the network overhead due to the control messages. The paper describes the MEDIWARN communication system and addresses the experimental performance evaluation of an implementation in a real use-case scenario. Moreover, the work discusses a simulative assessment of the MEDIWARN communication system performance obtained using different routing protocols. In particular, the timeliness and reliability results obtained by the MP-RPM routing protocol are compared with those obtained by two widely adopted routing protocols, i.e., the Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) and the Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector Routing (DSDV).<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jsan10030044","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,7,1]],"date-time":"2021-07-01T05:00:10Z","timestamp":1625115610000},"page":"44","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["A Network Architecture and Routing Protocol for the MEDIcal WARNing System"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3631-7504","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Luca","family":"Leonardi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Catania, 95124 Catania, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0604-9783","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lucia","family":"Lo Bello","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Catania, 95124 Catania, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9709-5717","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Gaetano","family":"Patti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Catania, 95124 Catania, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Orazio","family":"Ragusa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Catania, 95124 Catania, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,30]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dias, D., and Paulo Silva Cunha, J. 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