Multi Frequency Protocol with Adaptive Frequency Hopping for Reliable Wireless Patient Monitoring

In this paper we present the multi-frequency wireless communication protocol and adaptive frequency hopping algorithm that are designed specifically with the goal of increasing the reliability of the physiological data transmissions by medical body area networks (MBAN). We discuss the protocol structure and compare adaptive and non-adaptive frequency hopping algorithms used within the MAC protocol. We introduce the comprehensive simulation framework and provide the simulation results which clearly show the advantage of using adaptive frequency hopping in realistic hospital scenarios, dominated with inter-MBAN and Wi-Fi interferes.