Measurement system with experiments for galvanic coupling type intra-body communication

Intra-body communication (IBC) is a technique to transmit electric signal through the on-body and implanted sensors by means of the conducting properties of the human body. This technique could be an innovative networking method for sensors on the human body and sharing information among the devices scattered across the human body. To analyze the characteristics of human data channel, we devise a quantitative measurement system that can provide a quantitative current in the transmitter and a qualitative analysis in the receiver. The transmitter of the system includes a current driving circuit with an amplifying and filtering circuit in receiver. By testing performance of the system and conducting in-vivo experiments with the proposed measurement system, the physical characteristic of human data channel was studied. Experimental results show that the human body has a stable propagation characteristic in the frequency range from 1 kHz to 100 kHz, and the potential gain characteristics approximate to a high-pass filter.