Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a device developed mainly for the purpose of monitoring the medical condition of a human. WBAN is worn on the surface or in the human body, and it contains a wireless communication device.  A WBAN device is required to be small-sized, with limited power and high data reliability. The data reliability can be obtained by using a carefully designed channel coding scheme so that the energy consumed can be maintained at a low level.  In this paper, data transmission in Rayleigh, Rician, and Nakagami-m fading channels using Raptor and BCH codes is simulated.  Simulation results show that Raptor-coded data transmission consumes lower energy compared to BCH-coded transmission for various fading channels if the transmission distance exceeds 10 meters.  Therefore, Raptor code is a good candidate for the channel coding scheme for WBAN

Aditya, Antonius

Sari, Lydia

English

TELKOMNIKA (Telecommunication Computing Electronics and Control)

TELKOMNIKA, Vol.13, No.1, March 2015, pp. 277~283 
ISSN: 1693-6930, accredited A by DIKTI, Decree No: 58/DIKTI/Kep/2013 
DOI: 10.12928/TELKOMNIKA.v13i1.924       277 
  
Received October 30, 2014; Revised January 7, 2015; Accepted January 24, 2015 
Raptor Code for Energy-Efficient Wireless Body 
Area Network Data Transmission 
 
 
Lydia Sari*1, Antonius Aditya2 
Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia 
Jln. Jend. Sudirman Kav. 51, Jakarta 12930, Ph. 021-5708826 
*Corresponding author, e-mail: lydia.sari@atmajaya.ac.id1, antonius.aditya09@gmail.com2 
 
 
Abstract 
Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a device developed mainly for the purpose of monitoring 
the medical condition of a human. WBAN is worn on the surface or in the human body, and it contains a 
wireless communication device.  A WBAN device is required to be small-sized, with limited power and high 
data reliability. The data reliability can be obtained by using a carefully designed channel coding scheme 
so that the energy consumed can be maintained at a low level.  In this paper, data transmission in 
Rayleigh, Rician, and Nakagami-m fading channels using Raptor and BCH codes is simulated.  Simulation 
results show that Raptor-coded data transmission consumes lower energy compared to BCH-coded 
transmission for various fading channels if the transmission distance exceeds 10 meters.  Therefore, 
Raptor code is a good candidate for the channel coding scheme for WBAN. 
 
Keywords: wireless body area network, raptor code, data transmission, rayleigh, fading channel 
 
 
1. Introduction 
Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a cluster of wireless sensors worn by humans 
mainly for the purpose of medical condition monitoring. The human physiological data such as 
blood pressure or body temperature are monitored by the sensors and sent to a data processor 
regardless of the location or the activity of the subject [1].  WBAN is a structure which contains a 
short-range communication system based on IEEE 802.15.6.  The standard allows for low-
power and small-sized devices and includes characterization of electromagnetic wave 
propagation transmitted by a device located on or in the human body.  
Aside from being able to send information using a small-sized antenna and limited 
power, a WBAN device must also be able to send information reliably over a long term.  
Reliability and durability can be achieved through appropriate modulation and coding schemes. 
The modulation scheme choice will affect the transmitter and receiver power required by WBAN 
device, which will subsequently affect the device lifetime.  However to achieve high reliability, 
the coding scheme will play the more important part compared to that of the modulation 
scheme. An ideal coding scheme for WBAN is one that ensures reliable transmission of 
information in a rapidly changing wireless channel. 
 Raptor codes, an extension of Luby-Transform (LT) codes with linear time encoding 
and decoding have been shown to attain good upper-bound on overall error probability when 
used in binary erasure channel [2]. Several channel model for WBAN has been proposed based 
on numerical simulations and/or measurements. A mathematical model using dyadic Green 
function to model the human body as a simplified cylinder has been proposed and used to show 
the receive signal variations around the human body [3]. Another research proposes the use of 
pathloss channel model based on measurement [4]-[5]. The pathloss channel is stated as a 
function of distance and frequency, and the fluctuating power is shown to match lognormal 
distribution. As the wearer of a WBAN device moves around, the wireless channel is subject to 
fading.  Objects around the human body will also reflect and scatter the signal, contributing to a 
multipath fading of a Rice distribution [6]. A more general fading model form WBAN is Rayleigh-
distributed. Another possibility that can be taken into consideration is the Nakagami-m 
distributed fading channel, as this is the model which provides indoor-mobile multipath 
propagation in addition to ionospheric radio link [6]. Various researches have shown that Raptor 
codes provide a robust data transmission even in noisy channels.  The performance of an 
optimized Raptor code in quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel has been analyzed and shown to 
                   ISSN: 1693-6930 
TELKOMNIKA  Vol. 13, No. 1, March 2015 :  277 – 283 
278
be close to the theoretical limits on varied delay requirements [7].  For Rician fading channel, 
the Raptor code performance is shown to also have near-Shannon capacity performance when 
used with fixed rates [8].  Another research shows that Raptor code combined with turbo codes 
can yield good performance in soft-blockage and hard-blockage channel models, where the 
soft-blockage channel uses Nakagami-m distribution [9].   
In this paper, the performance of Raptor codes in Nakagami-m, Rician, and Rayleigh 
distributed fading channel based on the total energy consumed is considered.  The energy 
consumed when data is transmitted under various fading conditions using Raptor code and 
BCH code is also simulated. Simulations show that Raptor coded data in BFSK modulation 
scheme consumes comparable energy in Nakagami-m, Rayleigh and Rician fading channels. 
The consumed energy for Raptor coded data is as low as 0.3 Joule for a transmission distance 
of 50 meters. Compared to BCH coded data, the Raptor coded data shows lower energy 
consumption when the transmission distance exceeds 10 meters. 
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides the description of the 
system model, while in Section 4 the simulation results are presented. The conclusion is given 
in Section 5. 
 
 
2. System Model 
The WBAN considered in this paper follows the model proposed in [1] that consists of a 
wearable body sensor equipped with a transmitter, and a central processing unit as the receiver.  
The WBAN works in cycles consisting of active mode, transient mode, and sleep mode periods. 
During active mode period, Tac, the data obtained by the wearable sensor is amplified, filtered, 
digitized and coded.  An L-bit binary message is generated in the digitization process. The 
encoder in turn will split the bit stream into blocks with equal length Bj, j = 1, …, L/k where k is 
the block length. The encoder will then generate a coded bit stream Cj, j = 1,…, L/k with a 
random block length depending on the channel condition [1]. The coded bit are FSK modulated 
and transmitted to the central processing unit, and the wearable body sensor returns to the 
sleep mode which lasts for Tsl. The period between the active mode and the sleep mode is 
denoted as the transient mode Ttr. The Raptor code parameters used in this paper are taken 
from [1]. 
The total energy consumed by the WBAN to transmit L-bit message considering the 
power consumed by the power synthesizer (Psy), the power amplifier (PAmp) and the circuit (Pc)   
can be stated as [1]  
 
   
c
decenc
trsy
c
Ampc
bcc
d
L
R
EEL
TP
MBR
MLPP
P
M
MR
L
G
NE

 75.1log24lnlog12 22
0
  (1) 
where  is power amplification factor based on the type of the power amplifier, d is the ratio 
between the transmitted and received signal powers for the wearable body sensor and the 
central processing unit separated by distance d, M is the modulation order, Pb is the bit error 
rate, cR is the average Raptor code rate, and the computation energy of the encoder and 
decoder is denoted as Eenc and Edec, respectively. 
 For BCH-coded data transmission, the energy consumed is  
 
trans
b
BCH EP
E  1
1
 (2) 
 
where Pb is the bit error probability given in (9) and Etrans is the total energy required by the 
transmitter and receiver which can be stated as 
 
  rttrans PPLE    (3) 
TELKOMNIKA  ISSN: 1693-6930  
 
Raptor Code for Energy-Efficient Wireless Body Area Network Data Transmission (Lydia Sari) 
279
where Pt and Pr  are the transmitter and receiver power, respectively. The total required power 
can be stated as 
 
TArctcrt eeePPP   (4) 
 
where etc and erc are the energy consumed by the transmitter and receiver circuitry, 
respectively, and eTA is the energy required for the transmitter amplifier.  The parameter eTA can 
be stated as [10] 
 
   
  ampantrsTA G
NNFe 
 40  (5) 
 
where s  is the SNR, NFr is the noise figure of the receiver,    is the path loss exponent,  is 
the wavelength in meters, Gant is the antenna gain and amp is the transmitter power efficiency. 
To analyze Pb, several formulations are used according to fading channels involved.  
The symbol error probability for orthogonal M-FSK Nakagami-m fading is [11]-[12] 
 
     ms
mlM
l
s ml
l
l
M
EP
/11
111)(
11
1 



 


  (6) 
 
where m is the shape parameter and  denotes the average SNR.  For Rayleigh fading, the 
symbol error probability is [10] 
 
   mmm
M
EP
s
mM
m
s /11
111)(
11
1 


 



 
(7) 
 
For Rice fading, the symbol error probability is stated as [11] 
 
     








 



s
s
s
mM
m
s KmK
mK
KmK
K
m
M
EP 

 11exp11
111)(
11
1    
(8) 
 
The relation between the symbol error and the bit error rate probability is [11] 
 
   EP
M
MEP sb 


 12
1  (9) 
 
 
4.  Simulation Results 
In the first simulation, a Raptor coded data which length is 8192 bits is transmitted in a 
Nakagami-m fading channel. Figure 1 shows the simulation of Raptor coded data transmission 
performance in  Nakagami-m channels with m = 2, 3, and 4.  It is shown that for transmission 
distance below 15 m, the Raptor coded data will have similar energy consumption. The energy 
gap for channel conditions where m = 2, 3 and 4 with distance above 15 m, however, is 
negligible. This means when the fading condition worsens (m = 2), the Raptor coded 
transmission consumes approximately the same energy as when the fading condition is not too 
severe (m = 4).  However it should be noted that the bit error probability for the simulated 
Nakagami-m channels varies between 10-2 to 4  10-2. 
Figure 2 shows the simulation results of the total energy consumed by transmitting 
Raptor coded data transmitted in Rice and Rayleigh fading channels.   It is shown that the 
energy consumed for transmission in a Rice fading channel slightly exceeds that in Rayleigh 
fading channel.  However the probability of error resulting from the simulated transmission in a 
Rice fading channel is less than that in a Rayleigh fading channel. This agrees with the fact that 
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TELKOMNIKA  Vol. 13, No. 1, March 2015 :  277 – 283 
280
in a Rice fading channel, there exists a strong Line-of-Sight component.  Both figures show that 
the Raptor coded data will consumed 0.1 Joule of energy when the transmission distance is at 
least 80 meters.  
 
 
Figure 1.  Raptor coded data transmission in Nakagami-m channel 
 
 
Figure 3 shows the comparison of total energy consumed when data is sent under 
Rayleigh fading condition, using Raptor code and BCH code. It is shown that for transmission 
distance below 20m, the energy required by BCH-coded data is considerably lower than that of 
Raptor-coded data. The rate of the BCH code used is 157/511, meaning the number of bits in 
each codeword sent is lower than the Raptor-coded bits, where the codeword block length is 
varied indicating the rateless behavior of the Raptor code [1].  The small codeword size of BCH-
coded data results in lower energy consumption compared to the Raptor-coded data. The 
energy requirement of data transmission using Raptor code will be the same with that of BCH 
code when the transmission distance is 13 meters and beyond. The energy consumed by both 
BCH-coded and Raptor-coded data will increase with respect to transmission distance. 
However, the increase of energy requirement for Raptor-coded data is not as steep as that of a 
BCH-coded data due to the code rate of Raptor code.  This makes the implementation of Raptor 
code in WBAN more favorable than BCH code. 
 
 
 
 
Figure 2. Raptor coded data transmission in Rayleigh and Rician fading channels 
TELKOMNIKA  ISSN: 1693-6930  
 
Raptor Code for Energy-Efficient Wireless Body Area Network Data Transmission (Lydia Sari) 
281
Figure 4 shows the simulation result for Raptor-coded data and BCH-coded data 
transmitted under Nakagami-m fading channel, where m = 4.  The result is similar to that of 
Raptor-coded and BCH-coded data transmission under Rayleigh fading condition, with the 
BCH-coded data requiring less energy for short transmission distance. In the case of Nakagami-
m fading channel, the BCH-coded data transmission will consume the same energy as the 
Raptor-coded data transmission when the transmission distance reaches 10.3m.  For 
transmission distance greater than 10.3m, the BCH-coded data transmission will require 
considerably greater energy than Raptor-coded data.  Again, the increase of energy 
requirement for Raptor-coded data is not as steep as that of a BCH-coded data. 
 
 
 
 
Figure 3. Raptor-coded vs BCH-coded data transmitted under Rayleigh fading condition 
 
 
A similar result is shown in Figure 5, where Raptor-coded data and BCH-coded data is 
transmitted under Rician fading. Under Rician fading, the transmission Raptor-coded data will 
require the same amount of BCH-coded data when the transmission distance reaches 11 
meters.  From Figure 3 – 5 it is apparent that for all simulated fading channels, the use of 
Raptor code is favorable for transmission distance of more than 10 meters. 
 
 
 
 
Figure 4.  Raptor-coded vs BCH-coded data transmitted under Nakagami-m fading, m = 4 
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282
 
 
Figure 5.  Raptor-coded vs BCH-coded data transmitted under Rician fading 
 
 
4. Conclusion 
Simulations of Raptor coded data transmission in different fading channels have been 
done. It is shown that in various fading conditions, the total energy consumed by Raptor coded 
data is low, namely 0,1 Joule for a transmission distance of 80 m. In severe fading condition, 
namely Nakagami-m fading channel with m = 2, the total energy consumed by Raptor coded 
data is comparable to that in better fading conditions, namely Nakagami-m fading channels with 
m = 3 and 4.  For Rayleigh and Rice fading channels, the total energy consumed is less than 
that in Nakagami-m channels. 
Simulations are also done to compare the energy requirements for the transmission of 
Raptor-coded and BCH-coded data in Rayleigh, Nakagami-m (m = 4) and Rician fading 
channels. It is shown that for short transmission distance (d < 10 meters), the BCH-coded data 
transmission will require lower energy compared to Raptor-coded data, due to the large value of 
BCH code rate.  However as the transmission distance increases, the energy requirement of the 
BCH code will be greater than that of the Raptor-coded data. It is also shown that although the 
energy requirement increases for both Raptor-coded and BCH-coded data transmission with 
respect to the transmission distance, for Raptor-coded data the increase is gradual as opposed 
to the very steep energy requirement increase for BCH-coded data. 
 These simulations show that Raptor code is a good candidate as a channel coding 
scheme for WBAN devices, especially ones that require a transmission distance between 10 – 
100 meters, based on the total energy consumed.  However further researches are required to 
improve the bit error probability of the proposed system. 
 
 
References 
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[3] Gupta A, Abhayapala TD. Body Area Networks: Radio Channel Modelling And Propagation 
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[4] Katayama N, et.al. Channel Model on Various Frequency Bands for Wearable Body Area Network. 
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Raptor Code for Energy-Efficient Wireless Body Area Network Data Transmission

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Raptor Code for Energy-Efficient Wireless Body Area Network Data Transmission

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