Performance of amplify forward and decode forward cooperative strategies for body surface communications in UWB Body Area Networks

Body area networks (BAN) are being developed for telemonitoring of patients. Ultra wideband (UWB) is the most preferred choice for the physical layer of the BAN as it provides high data rate at low power consumption along with a simple transceiver structure. But because of high fading characteristics of the human body channel, the range of UWB will be limited, and a reliable communication cannot be guaranteed. In that case, cooperative communications may be applied to BAN for improving system performance and link quality. The paper proposes a novel approach by applying amplify and forward, and decode and forward cooperative relaying strategies with maximal ratio combining for BAN. The performance of single relay AF and DF relaying have been compared with direct transmission. Further, the efficacy of the proposed strategies has been validated by transmitting electrocardiogram signals and magnetic resonance imaging images. Simulations and validations have been carried out on Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers designated CM3 channel model for BAN designed from real time measurements data. A signal-to-noise ratio gain of at least 3 dB is clearly observed from simulation results. Thus, transmit power requirement can be minimized, which in turn improves the battery life of body sensor nodes. Copyright (C) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.