Medium-access control schemes for ultrasonic communications in the body based on second order statistics

A method for calculating a forward data generation rate and a forward transmission probability profile for communication through biological tissue using ultrasonic pulses, the method comprising:

• measuring, with a receiver, sets of interference values between the receiver and a transmitter, each set of interference values corresponding to one or more instants in a time slot on a communication channel;
• calculating a first order moment and a second order moment for each instant based on the interference values corresponding to the measured instant;
• calculating an outage probability value for each set;
• and
• calculating the forward data generation rate and the forward transmission probability profile based on the calculated outage probability value and a predetermined threshold transmission rate, a predetermined transmission delay threshold, and a predetermined residual transmission error rate.