An energy efficient network coding approach for Wireless Body Area Networks

In this paper, we propose a practical network coding approach for wireless body are networks (WBANs) using decode-and-forward relays. In this scheme, namely decode and forward-network coding (DF-NC), each relay linearly combines different messages from different sources to generate one message, and then transmits that message to the destination. Each relay node in DF-NC requires only one transmission time slot to forward its message. Thus, in this approach, energy usage at each relay is minimized compared to existing cooperative schemes without network coding, which require N_s time slots per relay for relay transmissions; where N_s is the number of source nodes. Simulation results show that the proposed DF-NC scheme can achieve near optimal outage probability while minimizing the number of transmissions per node, maximizing the energy efficiency of WBANs, and minimizing the delay.