UWB on-body radio channel modeling using ray theory and subband FDTD method

Abstract

This paper presents the ultra-wideband on-body radio channel modeling using a subband finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and a model combining the uniform geometrical theory of diffraction (UTD) and ray tracing (RT). In the subband FDTD model, the frequency band (3-9 GHz) is uniformly divided into 12 subbands in order to take into account the material frequency dispersion. Each subband is simulated separately and then a combination technique is used to recover all simulations at the receiver. In the UTD/RT model, the RT technique is used to find the surface diffracted ray path, while the UTD is applied for calculating the received signal. Respective modeling results from two- and three-dimensional subband FDTD and UTD/RT models indicate that antenna patterns have significant impacts on the on-body radio channel. The effect of different antenna types on on-body radio channels is also investigated through the UTD/RT approach.