Title :
Experimental characterisation of ultra-wideband off-body radio channels considering antenna effects
Author :
Khan, M.M. ; Abbasi, Qammer H. ; Alomainy, Akram ; Yang Hao ; Parini, Clive
Author_Institution :
Sch. of Electron. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Queen Mary Univ. of London, London, UK
Abstract :
Experimental investigation to characterise the ultra-wideband (UWB) off-body radio propagation channel for body-centric wireless communication is presented. The measurements were performed in an indoor environment using active UWB wireless tags. Two different kinds of receiver antennas have been used; namely a small form factor (SFF) antenna and miniaturised co-planar waveguide-fed tapered slot antenna to investigate their effects on the radio channel behaviour. Statistical analysis is performed on the radio channel data and the results demonstrated that the lognormal distribution provides the best fit for off-body propagation channel path-loss models. Comparison of results shows that a reduction of 29% path-loss exponent is noticed for the SFF antenna. In addition to this, second-order channel parameters such as fade probability, level-crossing rate and average fade duration are also investigated and compared for the two antennas.
Keywords :
UHF antennas; UHF radio propagation; antenna feeds; body area networks; coplanar waveguides; indoor radio; log normal distribution; receiving antennas; slot antennas; statistical analysis; ultra wideband antennas; ultra wideband communication; wireless channels; SFF antenna; active UWB wireless tags; antenna effects; average fade duration; bandwidth 2.45 GHz; body-centric wireless communication; experimental characterisation; fade probability; indoor environment; level-crossing rate; lognormal distribution; miniaturised coplanar waveguide-fed tapered slot antenna; off-body propagation channel path-loss models; radio channel behaviour; receiver antennas; second-order channel parameters; small form factor antenna; statistical analysis; ultra-wideband off-body radio channel channel;
Journal_Title :
Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation, IET
DOI :
10.1049/iet-map.2011.0560