Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the use of fat tissue as a communication channel between in-body, implanted devices at R-band frequencies (1.7–2.6 GHz). The proposed fat channel is based on an anatomical model of the human body. We propose a novel probe that is optimized to efficiently radiate the R-band frequencies into the fat tissue. We use our probe to evaluate the path loss of the fat channel by studying the channel transmission coefficient over the R-band frequencies. We conduct extensive simulation studies and validate our results by experimentation on phantom and ex-vivo porcine tissue, with good agreement between simulations and experiments. We demonstrate a performance comparison between the fat channel and similar waveguide structures. Our characterization of the fat channel reveals propagation path loss of ∼0.7 dB and ∼1.9 dB per cm for phantom and ex-vivo porcine tissue, respectively. These results demonstrate that fat tissue can be used as a communication channel for high data rate intra-body networks.
Highlights
Data from the World Health Organization indicates that millions of people are suffering from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular conditions, chronic respiratory diseases, cancer, diabetes, obesity, or arthritis [1,2]
The focus of this paper is to investigate the propagation of microwave signals through the fat tissue and scrutinize the performance of the intra-body communication technique with an ambition to gather data from multiple implanted devices or stimulators in the human body by utilizing the fat tissue
For the first time, we present a novel probe that is matched to the fat tissue over the whole R-band
Summary
Data from the World Health Organization indicates that millions of people are suffering from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular conditions, chronic respiratory diseases, cancer, diabetes, obesity, or arthritis [1,2]. Simultaneous aggregation of information from multiple implanted devices and stimulators is needed for the therapist to administer treatments This will increase the demand on the data capacity of the communication channel. To design stable and reliable fat iBAN links, it is important to assess the microwave propagation losses along the fat channel This will allow the development of reliable in-body communication systems for real-time and continuous monitoring. The focus of this paper is to investigate the propagation of microwave signals through the fat tissue and scrutinize the performance of the intra-body communication technique with an ambition to gather data from multiple implanted devices or stimulators in the human body by utilizing the fat tissue.
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