Interference Mitigation in WBANS: Challenges and Existing Solutions

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are an exciting new networking technology developed in the recent years with advancements in wireless communication, integrated circuits and Micro-Electro- Mechanical Systems (MEMs). They consist of a number of sensor nodes that are placed in or around the human body. However, their practical deployment requires addressing numerous challenges. WBANs face many stringent requirements in power, bandwidth, and network lifetime which need to be taken into serious consideration in the design of different protocols. In this paper, we investigate the importance of interference mitigation amongst coexisting Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). Since, a WBAN is most likely to encounter other WBANs, inter-WBAN interference and scheduling is of utmost importance.