Performance Evaluation of Forward Error Correction Schemes in Wireless Body Area Networks

This paper considers the use of Luby transform (LT) codes as a forward error correction (FEC) scheme for wireless body area networks (WBANs). We evaluate the bit error rate (BER) and packet error rate (PER) performance of LT codes for the following communication scenarios in WBAN: (i) in-body communication between invasive devices and hub and (ii) on-body communication among noninvasive devices and hub with line of sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) channels. A WBAN in which sensor nodes monitor the physiological parameters of human body and sends the data to a common hub regularly is considered. We also evaluate the performance of Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquengham (BCH) codes, the FEC scheme specified by IEEE 802.15.6 for WBANs.

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