BAN Radio Link Characterization Using an Arm-Swinging Dynamic Phantom Replicating Human Walking Motion

This paper presents a newly developed arm-swinging dynamic phantom that can simulate human walking and running motions. The arm-swinging phantom has unique features, in that swinging of the right and left arms and the direction and speed of swing can be controlled independently, leading to excellent capability for replicating the variety of natural walking and running styles seen in the average human. Using the phantom, we have attempted to develop a dynamic channel characterization for BAN systems, such as shadowing properties and path loss characteristics, when the geometrical relationships between the arms and the human body change continuously due to the movement of the arms for both off-body and on-body situations. Assessments of communication quality, such as the signal bit error rate, were also conducted to gain useful knowledge of the way and the degree to which arm-swinging might impact the performance of body-attached BAN devices. Analytical results are also shown for the case where the combined outcome of shadowing and multipath fading emerge simultaneously when a human walks in a multiple radio wave propagation environment while swinging both arms.