Numerical Characterization and Modeling of Subject-Specific Ultrawideband Body-Centric Radio Channels and Systems for Healthcare Applications

作者：Abbasi Qammer Hussain^*; Sani Andrea; Alomainy Akram; Hao Yang

来源：IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 2012, 16(2): 221-227.

DOI：10.1109/TITB.2011.2177526

• Ultrawideband
• body-centric wireless network
• finite difference time domain (FDTD)
• orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)

The paper presents a subject-specific radio propagation study and system modeling in wireless body area networks using a simulation tool based on the parallel finite-difference time-domain technique. This technique is well suited to model the radio propagation around complex, inhomogeneous objects such as the human body. The impact of different digital phantoms in on-body radio channel and system performance was studied. Simulations were performed at the frequency of 3-10 GHz considering a typical hospital environment, and were validated by on-site measurements with reasonably good agreement. The analysis demonstrated that the characteristics of the on-body radio channel and system performance are subject-specific and are associated with human genders, height, and body mass index. Maximum variations of almost 18.51% are observed in path loss exponent due to change of subject, which gives variations of above 50% in system bit error rate performance. Therefore, careful consideration of subject-specific parameters are necessary for achieving energy efficient and reliable radio links and system performance for body-centric wireless network.

• 出版日期2012-3