Robust Wireless Body Area Networks Coexistence: A Game Theoretic Approach to Time-Division MAC

The enabling of wireless body area networks (WBANs) coexistence by radio interference mitigation is very important due to a rapid growth in potential users, and a lack of a central coordinator among WBANs that are closely located. In this paper, we propose a TDMA based MAC layer Scheme, with a back-off mechanism that reduces packet collision probability; and estimate performance using a Markov chain model. Based on the MAC layer scheme, a novel non-cooperative game is proposed to jointly adjust sensor node's transmit power and rate. In comparison with the state-of-art, simulation that includes empirical data shows that the proposed approach leads to higher throughput and longer node lifespan as WBAN wearers dynamically move into each other's vicinity. Moreover, by adaptively tuning contention windows size an alternative game is developed, which significantly reduces the latency. Both proposed games provide robust transmission under strong inter-WBAN interferences, but are demonstrated to be applicable to different scenarios. The uniqueness and existence of Nash Equilibrium (NE), as well as close-to-optimum social efficiency, is also proven for both games.