  A network coding scheme for practical implementations of wireless body area
networks is presented, with the objective of providing reliability under
low-energy constraints. We propose a simple network layer protocol for star
networks, adapting redundancy based on both transmission and reception energies
for data and control packets, as well as channel conditions. Our numerical
results show that even for small networks, the amount of energy reduction
achievable can range from 29% to 87%, as the receiving energy per control
packet increases from equal to much larger than the transmitting energy per
data packet. The achievable gains increase as a) more nodes are added to the
network, and/or b) the channels seen by different sensor nodes become more
asymmetric.
