MAC Layer Resource Allocation for Wireless Body Area Networks

[Abstract] Wireless body area networks (WBANs) can provide low⁃cost, timely healthcare services and are expected to be widely used for e⁃healthcare in hospitals. In a hospital, space is often limited and multiple WBANs have to coexist in an area and share the same channel in order to provide healthcare services to different patients. This causes severe interference between WBANs that could significantly reduce the network throughput and increase the amount of power consumed by sensors placed on the body. Therefore, an efficient channel⁃resource allocation scheme in the medium access control (MAC) layer is crucial. In this paper, we develop a centralized MAC layer resource allocation scheme for a WBAN. We focus on mitigating the interference between WBANs and reducing the power consumed by sensors. Channel and buffer state are reported by smartphones deployed in each WBAN, and channel access allocation is performed by a central controller to maximize network throughput. Sensors have strict limitations in terms of energy consumption and computing capability and cannot provide all the necessary information for channel allocation in a timely manner. This deteriorates network performance. We exploit the temporal correlation of the body area channel in order to minimize the number of channel state reports necessary. We view the network design as a partly observable optimization problem and develop a myopic policy, which we then simulate in Matlab.

[Keywords] medium access control (MAC); wireless body area networks (WBANs); resource allocation; interference mitigation; partially observable optimization