A lightweight distributed scheme for mitigating inter-user interference in body sensor networks

Inter-user interference deteriorates reliable communication in body sensor networks (BSNs) when multiple BSNs are transmitting simultaneously in close proximity to each other. This paper presents a lightweight and distributed inter-user interference mitigation (IIM) scheme, that can be easily integrated with the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol stack. The proposed scheme takes into consideration the generic property of low channel utilization in BSNs and enables affected BSNs to adaptively reschedule their transmission time or switch channels. Based on the detected information from neighboring BSNs, BSNs reschedule their transmissions in a distributed and coordinated manner, so that wireless channels can be effectively utilized by multiple BSNs. Moreover, the IIM scheme is performed only when the performance of the BSN is degraded to an unacceptable level due to severe interference to reduce the rescheduling cost. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme improves the network throughput by 18% and reduces the energy consumption by 22% as compared with the existing beacon schedule scheme.

[1]  Anis Koubaa,et al.  A Time Division Beacon Scheduling Mechanism for IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee Cluster-Tree Wireless Sensor Networks , 2007, 19th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS'07).

[2]  Reinaldo A. Valenzuela,et al.  Network coordination for spectrally efficient communications in cellular systems , 2006, IEEE Wireless Communications.

[3]  Christofer Toumazou,et al.  Energy Efficient Medium Access Protocol for Wireless Medical Body Area Sensor Networks , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems.

[4]  Victor C. M. Leung,et al.  Mobility Support for Health Monitoring at Home Using Wearable Sensors , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine.

[5]  Chen-Khong Tham,et al.  Dynamic end-to-end capacity in IEEE 802.16 wireless mesh networks , 2010, Comput. Networks.

[6]  X. R. Li,et al.  Survey of maneuvering target tracking. Part I. Dynamic models , 2003 .

[7]  William P. Marnane,et al.  Energy-Efficient Low Duty Cycle MAC Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine.

[8]  Ingrid Moerman,et al.  A Comprehensive Survey of Wireless Body Area Networks , 2012, Journal of Medical Systems.

[9]  Theodore S. Rappaport,et al.  Wireless communications - principles and practice , 1996 .

[10]  Tao Wu,et al.  Minimizing inter-cluster interference by self-reorganizing MAC allocation in sensor networks , 2007, Wirel. Networks.

[11]  Lawrence Wai-Choong Wong,et al.  Inter-user interference in Body Sensor Networks: A case study in moderate-scale deployment in hospital environment , 2012, 2012 IEEE 14th International Conference on e-Health Networking, Applications and Services (Healthcom).

[12]  Athanasios V. Vasilakos,et al.  Body Area Networks: A Survey , 2010, Mob. Networks Appl..

[13]  Xiaodong Wang,et al.  Analysis of IEEE 802.16 Mesh Mode Scheduler Performance , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[14]  Mehul Motani,et al.  Inter-User Interference in Body Sensor Networks: Preliminary Investigation and an Infrastructure-Based Solution , 2009, 2009 Sixth International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks.

[15]  Ingrid Moerman,et al.  A survey on wireless body area networks , 2011, Wirel. Networks.

[16]  Kok-Kiong Yap,et al.  Investigating network architectures for body sensor networks , 2007, HealthNet '07.

[17]  Doo Seop Eom,et al.  Flexible beacon scheduling scheme for interference mitigation in body sensor networks , 2012, 2012 9th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON).

[18]  Martin T. Pietrucha,et al.  FIELD STUDIES OF PEDESTRIAN WALKING SPEED AND START-UP TIME , 1996 .

[19]  Jianfeng Wang,et al.  Applications, challenges, and prospective in emerging body area networking technologies , 2010, IEEE Wireless Communications.

[20]  Feng Xia,et al.  DISG: Decentralized Inter-user Interference Suppression in Body Sensor Networks with Non-cooperative Game , 2010, 2010 7th International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence & Computing and 7th International Conference on Autonomic & Trusted Computing.

[21]  Guang-Zhong Yang,et al.  Body sensor networks , 2006 .

[22]  Nikolaos G. Bourbakis,et al.  A Survey on Wearable Sensor-Based Systems for Health Monitoring and Prognosis , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C (Applications and Reviews).

[23]  Stefano Chessa,et al.  Wireless sensor networks: A survey on the state of the art and the 802.15.4 and ZigBee standards , 2007, Comput. Commun..

[24]  Lawrence Wai-Choong Wong,et al.  A lightweight inter-user interference mitigation method in Body Sensor Networks , 2012, 2012 IEEE 8th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob).