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Opportunistic Relaying in Wireless Body Area Networks: Coexistence Performance
Opportunistic Relaying in Wireless Body Area Networks: Coexistence Performance
Abstract—In this paper, a cooperative two-hop communication relaying scheme. Recently, two-hop cooperative communica-
scheme, together with opportunistic relaying (OR), is applied tions, which is included as an option in the IEEE 802.15.6
within a mobile wireless body area network (WBAN). Its effec- standard [2], has been proved to overcome typical significant
tiveness in interference mitigation is investigated in a scenario
where there are multiple closely-located networks. Due to a path loss experienced in single-link star topology WBAN
typical WBAN’s nature, no coordination is used among differ- communication [5]. Several such cooperative communication
ent WBANs. A suitable time-division-multiple-access (TDMA) schemes have been investigated for WBANs using either
scheme is adopted as both an intra-network and also an inter- narrow-band [6]–[9] or ultra-wideband [10]. Its effectiveness
network access scheme. Extensive on-body and off-body channel in interference mitigation has also been studied using realistic
gain measurements are employed to gauge performance, which
are overlaid to simulate a realistic WBAN working environment. on-body channel data and a simulated model of inter-WBAN
It is found that opportunistic relaying is able to improve the channel data [11]. It has been shown in [11] that the use of
signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) performance at an cooperative communication in any WBAN-of-interest is able
outage probability of 10% by an average of 5 dB, and it is also to significantly mitigate interference by providing an up-to 12
shown that it can reduce level crossing rate (LCR) significantly dB improvement in SINR outage probability.
at low SINRs. Furthermore, this scheme is more efficient when
on-body channels fade more rapidly. In this paper, the work is extended from [11], some simi-
larities are:
I. I NTRODUCTION 1) Intra- and inter-WBAN access scheme: time division
Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) represent the next multiple access(TDMA) across multiple WBANs is em-
generation of personal area networks [1]. The elementary ployed as well as within the intra-WBAN access scheme
components of a typical WBAN are sensors and a gateway since it provides better interference mitigation with
device, which is alternatively known as a hub. A traditional respect to power consumption and channel quality [12];
WBAN has a centralized topology, which is coordinated by 2) Three-branch cooperative communication: A WBAN
the central hub. It has a round-robin direct data exchange system in this paper uses two relay nodes to provide
behavior between each sensor and gateway node [2]. This kind extra diversity gain at the receiver. Three branches are
of system is widely used for patients monitoring and athletes’ used with one direct link from sensor to gateway node
training [3]. There were approximately 11 million active units and two additional links via two relays;
around the word in 2009, and this number is predicted to reach 3) Intra-WBAN channel model: Extensive on-body channel
420 million by 2014 [4]. gain measurements are adopted as the intra-WBAN
The pervasive use of WBAN thus increases the need for channel model for the analysis by simulation [13].
good coexistence between multiple WBANs. Imagine patients There are also some major differences in our simulation
wearing such a system in a medical centre, the number of setup:
WBANs closely located is large in some periods of the day 1) Diversity combining scheme: Instead of a three-branch
and WBANs can move rapidly with respect to each other. Due selection combining (SC) scheme at the gateway node
to WBANs’ nature of high mobility and potential large density, [11], an opportunistic relaying (OR) method is simu-
it is generally not feasible to have a global coordinator in such lated. OR reduces complexity when compared with SC
a circumstance. by adopting the concept that only a single relay with
Therefore, this leads to a challenging issue - interference the best network path towards the destination forwards
between multiple closely located WBANs. Interference among a packet per hop;
WBANs is a critical issue that can cause performance degrada- 2) Inter-WBAN channel model: A major contribution in
tion and hence is a threat to reliable operation of any WBAN. this paper is that performance of cooperative WBANs
A proposed method that will be investigated in this paper is to using opportunistic relaying with no cooperation be-
use two-hop cooperative communication with an opportunistic tween WBANs is investigated with real inter-body chan-
nel gain measurements [13].
† NICTA is funded by the Australian Government as represented by the
Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and the In a multi-WBANs coexistence scenario, a WBAN’s per-
Australian Research Council through the ICT Centre of Excellence program. formance is more interference limited. Therefore, the effec-
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TABLE II
I NTERFERING CHANNELS
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TABLE IV
S IMULATION COMBINATION : X INDICATES A SIMULATION IS PERFORMED . 10
0
Subject Index #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6
threshold
#1 x x x x x
#2 x x x x x
hops in the beginning of a superframe. With SINR ν defined Overall S2, Single
Overall S2, Coop
above, the selected relay jOR is hence determined by the
following: 10
í3
jOR = arg max[ν1,min , ν2,min ], (2) (a) Outage probability of Subject One with channel sample starting at n=45000
threshold
respectively; νab represents the average SINR for the signal
packet transmitted to b from a.
Percentage of SINR < SINR
í1
10 S2íS3,Single
At the receiving end, i.e. hub, the relayed copy is then S2íS3,Coop
compared with the source-to-destination link. The decision is S2íS4,Single
S2íS4,Coop
also based on the SINR value, and the larger one will be used S2íS5,Single
for decoding and demodulation. S2íS5,Coop
10
í2 S2íS1,Single
S2íS1,Coop
III. R ESULTS S2íS6,Single
S2íS6,Coop
Here, we simulate the case of a hub placed at chest with
two relays at the left and right hips, following the simulation
í3
10
configuration described in Section II. We present performance í20 í10 0 10 20 30 40
SINR threshold (dB)
analysis with respect to the system’s first order statistics -
outage probability of SINR, and its second order statistics - (b) Outage probability of Subject Two with channel sample starting randomly
level crossing rate. Their concept will be defined in following
sections. As shown in Table IV, simulation is duplicated Fig. 3. Outage probability of SINR for two subjects
using different combinations of the person-of-interest and
the interferer. Simulation for every combination is run 10
times with a varied starting time for the channel data. In in Fig. 3(a), the relevance of choosing a starting sample index
the following figures, the notation of “SX - SY, schem” n = 45000 is explained in the next paragraph. For Subject
indicates experiment using Subject X as WBAN-of-interest One, the cooperative communication scheme provides about
and Subject Y as interfering WBAN, with either a single-hop 5 dB improvement over traditional single link communications
or a cooperative communication scheme. at 10% outage probability. At 1% outage probability, the
improvement is even more significant, there is, in fact, more
A. Analysis of SINR outage probability than 15 dB improvement. In contrast, simulation on Subject
Outage probabilities at given SINR thresholds are defined Two shows similar results, with 4 dB and 6 dB improvement
as the probability of SINR value being smaller than a given at 10% and 1% outage probabilities respectively.
threshold However, while running simulations using a different start-
P r(ν < νthreshold ) (3) ing channel sample index, it is found that channel stability
has a significant impact on the performance of the cooperative
The performance of single link communication and two- communication scheme. Fig. 4 is a typical on-body channel
hop cooperative communication schemes are compared with gain plot for Subject One. It is clear that there is a significant
respect to SINR threshold at 1% and 10% outage probability. change in operating environment for the sample where the
Here, 10% outage probability corresponds to a guideline for red line is placed in Fig. 4. Subject One’s on-body channels
10% maximum packet error rates in the IEEE 802.15.6 BAN become more unstable after that point, i.e. channel coherence
standard [2]. time decreases rapidly. Hence, simulation is also performed
Fig. 3 shows the outage probability for situations when dif- with channel sample taken from n = 1000, and result is
ferent subjects are treated as the person-of-interest. Note that plotted in Fig. 5. Compared to Fig. 3(a) where channel sample
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í50 10
1
n = 1000 n = 45000
í55
í60
í65
0
10
í70
í75
S1íS3,Single
í80 S1íS3,Coop
S1íS2,Single
í85 í1 S1íS2,Coop
10
S1íS4,Single
í90
S1íS4,Coop
í95 S1íS5,Single
S1íS5,Coop
í100 S1íS6,Single
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 S1íS6,Coop
Sample Index x 10
5
í2
10
í20 í15 í10 í5 0 5 10 15 20 25
SINR threshold (dB)
Fig. 4. A typical on-body channel gain plot of Subject One
1
threshold
10
Percentage of SINR < SINR
í1 S1íS3,Single
10
S1íS3,Coop
S1íS2,Single
Level crossing rate (Hertz)
S1íS2,Coop 10
0
S1íS4,Single
S1íS4,Coop
S2íS3,Single
S1íS5,Single
í2 S2íS3,Coop
10 S1íS5,Coop
S2íS4,Single
S1íS6,Single
S2íS4,Coop
S1íS6,Coop
í1 S2íS5,Single
Overall S2, Single 10
S2íS5,Coop
Overall S2, Coop
S2íS1,Single
í3
S2íS1,Coop
10 S2íS6,Single
0 5 10 15 20 25
SINR threshold (dB) S2íS6,Coop
í2
10
í20 í15 í10 í5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Fig. 5. Outage probability of Subject One with channel sample starting at SINR threshold (dB)
n=1000
where ti,i+1 is the time between the ith and (i+1)th crossing. Fig. 8. LCR of Subject One with channel sample starting at n=1000
Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 both show that cooperative two-hop
communications are able to reduce level crossing rates at low
SINR threshold values significantly. At a LCR of 1 Hz, the
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