Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are attracting attention as a very important technology for realizing an Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). IEEE 802.15.6 is well known as one of the international standards for WBANs for the IoMT. This article proposes the combination of the IEEE 802.15.6 ultra-wideband (UWB) physical layer (PHY) with a super orthogonal convolutional code (SOOC) and evaluates its performance as a dependable WBAN. Numerical results show that sufficient dependability cannot be obtained with the error-correcting code specified in IEEE 802.15.6 when applying the single pulse option, while both high energy efficiency and dependability can be obtained by applying an SOCC. In addition, it is confirmed that higher dependability can be obtained by combining an SOCC with a Reed-Solomon (RS) code with a coding rate that is almost the same as the error correction code specified in the standard. Furthermore, the results indicate that high dependability and energy efficiency can be obtained by adjusting the SOCC coding rate and UWB PHY parameters, even in the burst pulse option. The SOCC-applied UWB PHY of this research satisfies the high requirements of the IoMT.
Keywords: IEEE 802.15.6; UWB; error controlling scheme; superorthogonal convolutional code; wireless body area network.