Network Coding for Efficient Error Recovery in Wireless Sensor Networks for Medical Applications

Modern medical wireless systems present a challenge where communication reliability is crucial, but the resources are limited, since medical devices carried on a patient need to be small. We propose, simulate and analyze one relay network, and show that network coding along with redundancy can be used as a very efficient error recovery mechanism that greatly improves network reliability at very low computational and hardware cost. Thus, network coding can be an interesting method for reliability improvement in medical systems such as Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN). A network coding scheme is proposed and simulated, and the optimal method according to that scheme is analyzed. Practical and fast decoding algorithm is presented. We then simulate the proposed network and the optimal method and compare it with the regular redundant network. Simulations show great improvement compared to regular redundant transfer, for very small computational cost. Finally, we simulate and show that the proposed network is still functional and operational even in case where one relay point is off.