Numerical analysis of on-body channel for statistically-generated body shapes

The development of ultra low power wireless sensors for customized wearable medical devices requires patient specific information for the evaluation of the on-body communication channel. Direct measurements on human subjects are impractical for many applications. In such cases, numerical techniques for electromagnetic analysis, such as Finite Differences in Time Domain (FDTD), is an attractive alternative. To this end, it is necessary to create whole-body models that are representative to the population data. In this paper, RF simulation is performed on shapes generated from a range of subjects. A whole body statistical shape model is generated from twenty subjects of varying sizes and height. The simulations show the dependence of path loss on subject specific cases. The human models of higher size and higher curvature have greater path loss which is analogous to real cases, suggesting the practical value of the model. Five different extreme human body shapes obtained from the statistical models, and the results from FDTD simulations at 2.4 GHz are presented.