A SELF SCHEDULING AND POWER CONTROL MAC PROTOCOL FOR INTERFERENCE MITIGATION IN WIRELESS BODY AREA NETWORKS

Abstract

Recent advances in the field of wireless communication and microelectronics, the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and the wireless body area networks (WBANs) have become a leading area of concern for researchers. A WBAN consists of few tiny sensor deployed in or outside the body with the aim of sensing and forwarding patient data to the sink node with limited power. However, distance between sensor nodes and the status of connection change with time due to human body postural mobility. A key challenge for WBAN is to maximize the network lifetime by reducing the end-to-end delay, network throughput and bandwidth efficiency. This work develops a self scheduling and power control MAC (SSPC-MAC) protocol in which the contention is not required for channel access. The protocol minimizes the interference probability; hence, improves the network throughput. The protocol achieves reduced interference by scheduling and queuing the active sensor nodes and power control. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol can reduce end-to-end delay, and maximize network throughput and bandwidth efficiency.