Dynamic Narrowband Body Area Communications: Link-Margin Based Performance Analysis and Second-Order Temporal Statistics

A dynamic narrowband on-body area communications scenario is characterized with respect to link margin as a difference between system operating point, in terms of receive power, and receiver sensitivity. The characterization is based on an extensive measurement campaign near the 900 MHz ISM bands, with a number of different human subjects moving at a range of speeds in an indoor-office scenario. Key implications for operating reliability in terms of outages, meeting latency requirements, infeasibility of interleaving and limits upon packet duration are drawn from this link margin analysis pertinent to body-area-communications system design. The need for receive hardware with good receiver sensitivity is highlighted. Further to this context important second-order statistics are given, such as fade duration, as well as a novel measure: average fade magnitude. Distributions are given to accurately characterize these second order statistics. Along with link margin analysis, this modeling can be used to verify possible implementations, and help in system design.