Interference Mitigation Using Adaptive Schemes in Body Area Networks

Considering the medical nature of the information carried in body area networks (BANs), interference from coexisting wireless networks or even other nearby BANs could create serious problems on their operational reliability. As practical implementation of power control mechanisms could be very challenging, link adaptation schemes can be an efficient alternative to preserve link quality while allowing more number of nodes to operate simultaneously. This paper proposes several interference mitigation schemes such as adaptive modulation as well as adaptive data rate and duty cycle for BANs. Interference mitigation factor is introduced as a measure to quantify the effectiveness of the proposed schemes. These schemes are relatively simple and well-suited for low power nodes in BANs that might be operating in environments with high level of interference.