The robustness of coding and modulation for body-area networks

We consider transmission over body area networks. Due to the difficulty in assessing an accurate statistical model valid for multiple scenarios, we advocate a system design technique favoring robustness. Our approach, which is based on results in [12] and generalizes them, examines the variation of a performance metric when the nominal statistical distribution of fading is replaced by the worst distribution within a given Kullback-Leibler divergence from it. The sensitivity of the performance metric to the divergence from the nominal distribution can be used as an indication of the design robustness. This concept is applied by evaluating the error probability of binary uncoded modulation and the outage probability ¿ the first parameter is useful to assess system performance with no error-control coding, while the second reflects the performance when a near-optimal code is used. The usefulness of channel coding can be assessed by comparing its robustness with that of uncoded transmission.