Inter-User Interference in Body Sensor Networks: Preliminary Investigation and an Infrastructure-Based Solution

Inter-user interference is the interference in communication when several body sensor networks (BSNs) operate in the same vicinity. As BSN users congregate in an area, interference due to concurrently communicating BSNs will increase, resulting in poor performance. In this paper, we conduct a preliminary investigation of the impact of inter-user interference and investigate its behavior with respect to parameters such as number of networks and the rates at which these networks communicate. Inter-user interference, is seen to reduce packet delivery ratio by almost 35% in cases of 8 or more high-rate networks operating in the same location. We also propose a system to mitigate the adverse effects of inter-user interference. Our solution uses a fixed network infrastructure to monitor and identify BSNs that are likely to interfere with each other. The network then recommends changes to the BSN protocol to lessen interference between them. We also implement an instance of our system using a wireless sensor network (WSN) infrastructure to reduce interference. The system is shown to significantly decrease the impact of inter-user interference.