IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications - Special issue on body area networking: Technology and applications
Ultra-wideband channel model for communication around the human body
IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications - Part 1
Application of high-band UWB body area network to medical vital sensing in hospital
BodyNets '13 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Body Area Networks
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Ultrawideband (UWB) communication is a promising technology for wireless body area networks (BANs), especially for applications that require transmission of both low and high data rates with excellent energy efficiency. Therefore, understanding the unique UWB channel propagation characteristics around the human body is critical for a successful wireless system, especially for insuring the reliability of important vital sign data. Previous work has focused only on on-body channels, where both TX and RX antennas are located on the human body. In this paper, a 3-5 GHz UWB channel is measured and analyzed for human body wireless communications. Beyond the conventional on-body channel model, line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) channel models are obtained using a TX antenna placed at various locations of the human body while the RX antenna is placed away from the human body. Measurement results indicate that the human body does not significantly degrade the impedance of a monopole omnidirectional antenna. The measured path loss and multipath analysis suggest that a LOS UWB channel is excellent for low-power, high-data-rate transmission, while NLOS and on-body channels need to be reconfigured to operate at a lower data rate due to high path loss.