A Study on Power Control Algorithms for Wireless Body Area Networks

In this paper, we investigate a wireless body area network (WBAN) with multiple users and multiple access points (AP). A user has multiple sensors which are delivered around the body. In a conventional WBAN, a sensor transmits its own data to the selected AP with full transmit power. Consequently, it affects the transmission of other sensors, resulting in a significant degradation in system performance. In this study, the authors discuss and propose a power control algorithm to increase the spectral efficiency of sensors under the condition of constrained transmitting power. According to simulation results, most sensors achieve higher spectral efficiency with the proposed power control approach than without power control. Furthermore, it indicates that the proposed power control algorithm significantly improves the WBAN system's throughput in both the uplink and downlink communications.