Interference cancellation in body-area networks using linear multiuser receivers

The problem of interference cancellation may arise in the nearest future for body-area networks (BANs) whenever a certain number of BANs are led to operate in the vicinity of each other under the same spectrum band. In this paper, using the data obtained from the measurements, the performance in terms of bit error rate (BER) of three linear CDMA receiver structures is investigated for BANs: the conventional receiver, the minimum mean square error receiver, and the decorrelator receiver. We show that in synchronous scenario, the three receivers exhibit the same performance regardless of the number of supported users and SNR level. The BER performance of the linear receivers in on-body channels is better than in Rayleigh channel with the belt-chest channel exhibiting the best gain due to the presence of a stronger LOS component. Furthermore, with orthogonal codes, these receivers are shown to be robust to the MAI level increase and do not require a perfect power control.