ech T Press Science Computers, Materials & Continua DOI:10.32604/cmc.2021.014305 Article A Novel Hybrid Clustering Based Transmission Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks Neelam Sharma 1, * , Harshita Chadha 2 , Karan Singh 3 , B. M. Singh 4 and Nitish Pathak 5 1 Research Scholar, Computer Science and Engineering, Uttarakhand Technical University (UTU), Dehradun, India 2 Computer Science and Engineering, Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India 3 School of Computer & Systems Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, India 4 College of Engineering Roorkee, UTU, Dehradun, India 5 Department of Information Technology, KIET Group of Institutions, Ghaziabad, India * Corresponding Author: Neelam Sharma. Email: sharmaneelam2@gmail.com Received: 12 September 2020; Accepted: 01 November 2020 Abstract: Wireless sensor networks are a collection of intelligent sensor devices that are connected to one another and have the capability to exchange infor- mation packets amongst themselves. In recent years, this feld of research has become increasingly popular due to the host of useful applications it can potentially serve. A deep analysis of the concepts associated with this domain reveals that the two main problems that are to be tackled here are throughput enhancement and network security improvement. The present article takes on one of these two issues namely the throughput enhancement. For the purpose of improving network productivity, a hybrid clustering based packet propagation protocol has been proposed. The protocol makes use of not only clustering mechanisms of machine learning but also utilizes the traditional forwarding function approach to arrive at an optimum model. The result of the simulation is a novel transmission protocol which signifcantly enhances network productivity and increases throughput value. Keywords: Forwarding function; wireless sensor networks; WSNs; WBANs; energy characteristics; clustering; hybrid mechanism; dissipated energy; network stability 1 Introduction Wireless sensor networks, in particular wireless body area networks have become an increas- ingly popular topic of research and inquiry in the past few years. This is both because of their capabilities and the implications of their application results. Wireless body area networks or WBANs for short may be defned as an assembly of smart sensor devices which gather meaningful information and are suitably linked to each other so as to communicate amongst themselves and thereby transmit the information collected. This area of research has become quite popular in the recent years because of the host of applications of this technology. WBANs can be used in the healthcare industry for remote This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.