Hybrid Relaying in Ultra-wideband Body Area Networks

Body area networks (BAN) are a new variety of wireless sensor networks which are being developed to track patients’ health. The 3.1–10.6 GHz ultra wideband band based BAN design has received huge commendation due to its capacity to provide high data rates and ability to carry medical signals of high bandwidth, on the sombre side however, its range is restricted in the human body channel. It requires novel techniques to improve the reliability and range. This paper proposes a novel approach to this problem. A solution using cooperative relaying has been proposed, that is not only unique, but also superior to classical cooperative relaying techniques. A cooperative relaying scheme employing hybrid relays, capable of a combination of ‘Amplify and Forward’ and ‘Decode and Forward’ relaying is used. In this method the signal to noise ratio, and mean square error, for electrocardiogram, blood pressure, electroencephalograms, and peak signal to noise ratio for magnetic resonance images, retinal and iris images, are measured at the relay and a decision is made to select relaying strategy. The work is unique in the aspect that, simulations have been performed and a comparative performance is presented, which suggests that SNR improvements of at least 3 dB, and quality of received medical signals is vastly enhanced.