Novel Data Transmission Schemes for Inter-WBAN Networks using Markov Decision Process

Abstract This work proposes a stochastic model of the coordinator units of each wireless body area network (WBAN) in a multi-WBAN scenario. In a Smart Home environment, multiple patients can come in vicinity of each other while each of them are wearing a WBAN configuration for monitoring of body vitals. Thus, while multiple WBAN coexists, the individual WBAN coordinators require adaptive transmission strategies in order to balance between maximizing the likelihood of data transmission and minimizing the chances of packet loss due to inter-BAN interference. Accordingly, the proposed work is divided into two phases. In the offline phase, each WBAN coordinator is modelled stochastically and the problem of their transmission strategy has been modeled as a Markov Decision Process(MDP). The channel conditions, buffer status that influence the transmission decision are taken to be the state parameters in MDP. The formulation is solved offline, prior to deployment of the network to find out the optimal transmission strategies for various input conditions. Such transmission policies for inter-WBAN communication are then deployed in the coordinator nodes in the post deployment phase. The work is simulated using Castalia and the results demonstrate the robustness of the proposed scheme in handling both favorable and unfavorable operating conditions.