Distributed Scheme for Interference Mitigation of Coexisting WBANs Using Latin Rectangles

TL;DR

This paper introduces DAIL, a distributed interference mitigation scheme for coexisting WBANs using Latin rectangles for channel and time-slot hopping, reducing collisions in the 2.4 GHz band.

Contribution

It proposes a novel Latin rectangle-based channel and time-slot hopping scheme for WBANs to minimize interference and collision probability.

Findings

DAIL reduces collision probability among coexisting WBANs.

Simulation results validate the effectiveness of DAIL in interference mitigation.

Analytical bounds on collision probability are derived.

Abstract

The performance of wireless body area networks (WBANs) may be degraded due to co-channel interference, i.e., when sensors of different coexisting WBANs transmit at the same time-slots using the same channel. In this paper, we exploit the 16 channels available in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed international band of ZIGBEE, and propose a distributed scheme that opts to avoid interference through channel to time-slot hopping based on Latin rectangles, DAIL. In DAIL, each WBAN's coordinator picks a Latin rectangle whose rows are ZIGBEE channels and columns are time-slots of its superframe. Subsequently, it assigns a unique symbol to each sensor; this latter forms a transmission pattern according to distinct positions of its symbol in the rectangle, such that collisions among different transmissions of coexisting WBANs are minimized. We further present an analytical model that derives bounds on the collision probability of each sensor's transmission in the network. In addition, the efficiency of DAIL in interference mitigation has been validated by simulations.