The effect of body shape and gender on wireless Body Area Network on-body channels

Abstract

Technological advancements have made possible the emergence of Body Area Networks (BANs). There are numerous on-body channel characterizations in the literature performed on a phantom or a single human subject. In this paper, using multiple subjects, we consider the effect of body shape and gender on the on-body channel. A characterization of a narrowband on-body to on-body channel among different subjects is presented. The paper investigates the relationship between the propagation and the subject's physical characteristics. The investigation is performed at 2360 MHz; the new medical band undergoing FCC approval. Our results show that the path loss in women is less than that in men and the level of fade is usually higher in men than women. They also show that involuntary movements along with respiration cause small-scale fading that follows the Rice distribution

Wireless sensor networks for rehabilitation applications: Challenges and opportunities

“…Developing propagation models is a key challenge because of the complexity of body structure (skin, bone, liquid) and especially because of the high degree of activity during rehabilitation exercises. Indeed, Franco et al [45] showed that even small involuntary movements along with respiration can cause significant signal fading. Beside the effect of human body on the wireless transmission, the adverse biological effect of radio transmissions on human body must be investigated too.…”

A Link Quality Estimator for Power-Efficient Communication Over On-Body Channels

“…Di Franco et al [4] showed that the shape of human body is an additional critical parameter in channel models. However, despite of these evidences, until now none of the LQE approaches presented in the literature have considered including some property that takes into account the effects of operating near the human body.…”

“…This fact can lead to changes in the quality of the links, affecting their reliability [2], [3]. Voluntary and involuntary movements cause shadowing, which affects the performance of the links; moreover, the shadow effect due to different body shapes has much influence in the path loss and in the distorted received signal [4].…”

1 Hop or 2 hops: Topology analysis in Body Area Network

“…The IEEE 802.15.6 standard [1], which is designed to address the communication in WBAN, organizes the nodes in a star topology or eventually in a two-hop extended star topology, where the hub and the node communicates using a relay node. The link reliability depends on the channel propagation conditions between transmitter and receiver, which is strongly dependent on the human mobility and on the node locations [2]. Considering that healthcare is one of the promising area of WBANs applications, a reliable and energyefficient data communication has to be provided.…”

“…• How can energy efficiency and network lifetime be maximized? The idea of this paper is to use the experimental data collected during daily activities to understand the characteristics of the wireless links in WBAN environment which is strongly influenced by the voluntary and involuntary movement [2]. The information gained from this analysis will allow us to evaluate link layer parameters which can help in designing network architecture, Medium Access Control (MAC) and routing protocols.…”