Diversity Measurements for On-Body Communication Systems

In this letter, preliminary measurements for the analysis of diversity techniques for on-body communication systems have been carried out, when both the transmitter and the receiver are placed on the body. A monopole antenna on a square ground plane has been used as a transmitting element and two monopoles on a common ground plane as a two-branch receiver. Measurements have been carried out in an anechoic chamber in order to verify the scattering and fading effects of the body itself on the radio communication channel. The acquired data have been postprocessed by resorting to different signal combining techniques, in order to evaluate the diversity performance. Measurement results in terms of diversity gain are shown for a number of typical on-body radio links, when different body postures are considered.