An efficient resource allocation algorithm based on vertex coloring to mitigate interference among coexisting WBANs

Abstract

Interference among adjacent or overlapping Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) can cause serious performance degradation and energy wastage. This paper proposes a new resource allocation algorithm based on vertex coloring to provide performance efficiency and reliability in coexisting WBANs. Interference among coexisting WBANs is modeled as an m-vertex graph G; where a vertex represents a WBAN and an edge represents interference between the two adjacent WBANs. Reliability is achieved by allocating different resources (time slots) to any two adjacent WBANs. Allocating non-overlapping time intervals to adjacent WBANs avoids interference. We prove that by using the proposed algorithm, the amount of resource obtained by each vertex is always more than the amount given by (Δ(G)+1)-coloring and sometimes even more than the amount given by χ(G)-coloring, where Δ(G) is the maximum vertex degree and χ(G) is the chromatic number of graph G. Moreover, it is demonstrated using game theoretic principles that while selfish vertices obtain unequal amount of resources, they have no motivation to disobey the rules of our proposed algorithm. The number of time slots required to allocate resource to G is O(Δ2(G)) and at most m. The number of transmitted messages by each vertex for resource allocation is at most one. The theoretical analysis is confirmed by extensive OPNET simulations.