Efficient and lightweight protocol for anti-jamming communications in wireless body area networks

Abstract

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have emerged as a new technology in healthcare. However, wireless interfaces make it more vulnerable to acute physical layer attacks. Indeed, jamming attacks on WBAN communications have become a significant challenge to address. This paper proposes a new security protocol against jamming attacks in healthcare and medical environments, combining Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), termed CFD-BD: Chaotic FH/DS Based Dissimulation. Our proposition is based on both the chaotic signal and dissimulation. The combination of these two techniques allows us to ensure an effective solution against jamming attacks and meet the challenges resulting from the constraints related to the limited resources of WBANs. The simulation results indicate that our proposal is lightweight in communication load, complexity, and storage.