UWB body area network coexistence by interference mitigation

This work analyzes the performance of a BAN composed of IEEE 802.15.4a Ultra Wide Band (UWB) sensors in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER), BAN throughput and network lifetime. The BAN performance is evaluated in presence of an external Low Data Rate (LDR) interfering network, that we suppose represented by a second BAN operating in the same hospital room. Coexistence between the two wireless networks is discussed and the reference BAN performance is improved by the adoption of an optimized time hopping code assignment strategy. A possible strategy to extend the lifetime of the network is also introduced.