Abstract
In this paper, portable transceivers with micro-controllers and radio frequency modules are developed to measure the received signal strength, path loss, and thus the distance between the human ankles for both indoor and outdoor environments. By comparing the experimental results and the theoretical model, a path loss model between transceivers attached to the subject’s ankles is derived. With the developed experimental path loss model, the step length can be measured relatively accurately, despite the imperfections of hardware devices, with the distance errors of a centimeter level. This paper, therefore, helps address the need for a distance measurement method that has fewer health concerns, is accurate, and is less affected by occlusions and confined spaces. Our findings possibly lay a foundation for some important applications, such as the measurement of gait speed and localization of the human body parts, in wireless body area networks.
Highlights
Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are radio networks of sensors placed on, in, around, or near the human body, which represent the latest generation of personal area networks [1]
Compared to other wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the wireless channels of WBANs show a variety of characteristics due to the presence of human body and the complex surrounding environments [3,4]
We focus on the distance measurement between two human body parts in WBANs scenarios using the hardware-based Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) approach
Summary
Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are radio networks of sensors placed on, in, around, or near the human body, which represent the latest generation of personal area networks [1]. Range-free methods use signals to define a region that contains the unknown node whereas range-based methods require additional hardware to assist the estimation [6]. The ultrasonic ranging system is accurate with the errors in the 10-cm level, it needs expensive hardware and is affected by temperature and humidity [11] Another representative in the range-based methods is the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), which features a low communication overhead and low complexity. In Reference [21], the authors combined RSSI and Angles-ofArrival (AOA) to estimate the position of an unknown node. It is worth to explore the performance of the RSSI-based method in distance measurement in WBANs with different hardware configurations
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