Dynamic Channel Access Scheme for Interference Mitigation in Relay-assisted Intra-WBANs

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel distributed interference mitigation scheme, CFTIM, for relay-assisted intra-WBANs that combines CSMA/CA and flexible TDMA, significantly improving interference reduction, energy efficiency, and throughput.

Contribution

The paper introduces CFTIM, a new hybrid scheme combining CSMA/CA and flexible TDMA for interference mitigation in relay-assisted intra-WBANs, outperforming existing methods.

Findings

CFTIM outperforms other schemes in interference mitigation.

The scheme extends WBAN energy lifetime.

It improves network throughput.

Abstract

This work addresses problems related to interference mitigation in a single wireless body area network (WBAN). In this paper, We propose a distributed \textit{C}ombined carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) with \textit{F}lexible time division multiple access (\textit{T}DMA) scheme for \textit{I}nterference \textit{M}itigation in relay-assisted intra-WBAN, namely, CFTIM. In CFTIM scheme, non interfering sources (transmitters) use CSMA/CA to communicate with relays. Whilst, high interfering sources and best relays use flexible TDMA to communicate with coordinator (C) through using stable channels. Simulation results of the proposed scheme are compared to other schemes and consequently CFTIM scheme outperforms in all cases. These results prove that the proposed scheme mitigates interference, extends WBAN energy lifetime and improves the throughput. To further reduce the interference level, we analytically show that the outage probability can be effectively reduced to the minimal.