Title :
Characterization of the Body-Area Propagation Channel for Monitoring a Subject Sleeping
Author :
Smith, David B. ; Miniutti, Dino ; Hanlen, Leif W.
Author_Institution :
Canberra Res. Lab., NICTA, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Abstract :
A dynamic characterization of the wireless body-area communication channel for monitoring a sleeping person is presented. The characterization uses measurements near the 2.4 GHz ISM band with measurements of eight adult subjects each over a period of at least 2 hours. Numerous transmit-receive pair (Tx-Rx) locations on and off the body for a typical body-area-network (BAN) are used. Three issues are addressed: 1) modeling of channel gain, 2) outage probability, and 3) outage duration. It is shown that over very large durations (far in excess of a delay requirement of 125 ms that is typical for many IEEE 802.15.6 medical BAN applications) there is not a reliable communications channel for star-topology BAN. The best case outage probability, with 0 dBm Tx power and - 100 dBm Rx sensitivity, is in excess of a packet-error-rate of 10%. Following from these issues the feasibility of using alternate on-body or off-body links as relays is demonstrated.
Keywords :
body area networks; patient monitoring; probability; radio links; radio receivers; radio transmitters; sleep; telecommunication network reliability; telecommunication network topology; wireless channels; IEEE 802.15.6 medical BAN applications; ISM band; Tx-Rx pair; adult subjects; body area propagation channel; channel gain modeling; communications channel reliability; frequency 2.4 GHz; off-body links; on-body links; outage duration; outage probability; packet error rate; sleeping person monitoring; star-topology BAN; transmit-receive pair; wireless body area communication channel; Body area networks; Gain; Gain measurement; Relays; Sensitivity; Time measurement; Time series analysis; Body area networks; channel modeling; outage duration; outage probability; relay communication; sleep monitoring;
Journal_Title :
Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TAP.2011.2164209
