Hand Palm Local Channel Characterization for Millimeter-Wave Body-Centric Applications

Nan Zhao,Zhi-Ya Zhang,Aifeng Ren,Qammer H Abbasi,Jianxun Zhao,Xiaodong Yang,Masood Ur-Rehman

doi:10.1109/access.2019.2946844

Abstract

The body-centric wireless channel characterization mostly utilizes whole body models. However, localized channels for body parts consistently interacting with the wireless device have their own importance. This paper attempts to characterize the hand palm local channel through experimental measurements at three millimeter-wave frequency bands of 27-28 GHz, 29-30 GHz, and 31-32 GHz. Five human subjects are used in this study. Net body loss is found to be 3dB for different subjects with subject-specific and varying palm shape size is found to be the primary affecting source. The repeatability of the on-body propagation measurements is found to be within 10% of variance.

Highlights

Development of wireless technologies accompanied by continuous device miniaturization has made wearable micro processing systems a reality of our daily life [1], [2]
The trends and observations are in-line with previous studies done at 5.8 GHz [22], [23]. These results infer that the lossy hand tissues affect the electromagnetic wave propagation in human hand, and this localized channel is highly subject-specific with a high degree of isolation between different subjects
Subject-specific studies based on whole human body are complex and time consuming and sometimes uncalled-for as the human organs directly in contact with the wireless device are the prime affecting factor

Summary

Introduction

Development of wireless technologies accompanied by continuous device miniaturization has made wearable micro processing systems a reality of our daily life [1], [2]. N. Zhao et al.: Hand Palm Local Channel Characterization for Millimeter-Wave Body-Centric Applications implants operating at Medical Implanted Communication Services (MICS) and Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) bands. It is observed that surface lines of the human palm are subject specific and have varying effect on the radio channel generating unique signatures.

Results

Conclusion