Impact of body shape on BAN communication channel at 5.8 GHz

The continuous interest of both the academic community and the industrial world in wearable devices is driving an ever more extensive research activity on Body Area Networks (BANs). According to the definition provided by the IEEE 802.15 Working Group, they can be defined as a communication system “optimized for low power devices and operation on, in or around the human body (but not limited to humans) to serve a variety of applications including medical, consumer electronics, personal entertainment and other”. In order to ensure that the system is truly optimized, it is of paramount importance to understand how different body shapes affect the characteristics of the propagation channel.