Characteristic and Modeling of Human Body Motions for Body Area Network Applications

Abstract

Many current and future medical devices are wearable and human body is used as a carrier for wireless communication, which implies human body to be a crucial part of the transmission medium in body area networks (BANs). In order to understand the propagation characteristics around human body, the statistical model is derived for communication links in the medical implant communication service band, industrial scientific medical band and ultra-wideband based on the narrowband measurement. The channel model of diffracting components around human body were different from one scenario to another. Moreover, second order statistics, including level crossing rate and fade duration, are presented for each scenario to evaluate the link quality and outage performance for on-body to on-body scenario. Using a network analyzer, Doppler spread spectrum in frequency domain and coherence time in time domain from temporal variations of human body movements are also analyzed from diverse perspectives. Additionally, the shape of Doppler spread spectrum is fitted to describe the relationship of power and frequency. The proposed on-body to on-body channel model for human body motions can be used to better design wireless network protocols for BANs.