Transient Characteristics of Wearable Antennas and Radio Propagation Channels for Ultrawideband Body-Centric Wireless Communications

Author

Alomainy, Akram ; Sani, Andrea ; Rahman, Atiqur ; Santas, Jaime G. ; Hao, Yang

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Eng., Queen Mary Univ. of London, London

Volume

57

Issue

4

fYear

2009

fDate

4/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

875

Lastpage

884

Abstract

This paper presents transient characterization of ultrawideband (UWB) body-worn antennas and on-body radio propagation channels for body-centric wireless communications. A novel miniaturized CPW-fed tapered slot antenna is proposed and used for transient measurements of UWB radio channels for body area network (BAN) and personal area network (PAN) scenarios. Unlike conventional UWB CPW-fed antennas, the proposed antenna employs two diverging tapered slots to provide smooth and stable impedance matching. Fidelity analysis is applied to evaluate the time-domain behavior of body-worn antennas and it is found that average fidelity obtained is 88% and 86% for the conventional coplanar waveguide fed antenna and the tapered slot antenna, respectively. However, the tapered slot antenna shows a significant size reduction and hence is suited for body-centric wireless communications.

Keywords

coplanar waveguides; personal area networks; radiowave propagation; slot antennas; wearable computers; CPW fed tapered slot antenna; body area network; on-body radio propagation channels; personal area network; transient characteristics; ultrawideband body centric wireless communications; wearable antennas; Antenna measurements; Antennas and propagation; Area measurement; Body area networks; Body sensor networks; Radio propagation; Slot antennas; Ultra wideband antennas; Ultra wideband technology; Wireless communication; Body-centric wireless network; body-worn antenna; radio propagation; transient domain; ultrawideband (UWB);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-926X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TAP.2009.2014588

Filename

4812183