Body-centric wireless communications at 94GHz

Wireless applications where both receivers and transmitters are located on the human body, also known as Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) applications, have been extensively investigated in the past few years with commercial products already available. One of the main issues in designing reliable and efficient WBANs at V and W bands is the modelling of the communication channel. The human body is a dispersive and dissipative medium, and its typical dimensions, with respect to the wavelength, are extremely large at the considered frequencies. So far, the Finite Differences in Time Domain (FDTD) method has been widely used up to X band, but the computational burden at millimetre-wave frequencies suggests considering the use of different, more efficient techniques, such as Ray Tracing (RT) in combination with the Uniform Theory of Diffraction (UTD). The aim of this paper is to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of the above mentioned method at W band by comparing the results of numerical simulations and on-body measurements at 94GHz. The simulations have been performed by means of the commercial software XGTDv2.5 by Remcom, where a digital phantom with dimensions similar to the subject has been imported.