On the energy detector, P- and s-rake receivers in a measured UWB channel inside a hospital

Medical industry is potentially a big market for the wireless applications in the coming years. As the number of elder people is increasing, the need for various wireless body monitoring and measurement equipment is increasing as well. However, having any kind of electronic device next to the human body, or even inside of a body, faces challenges. For wireless body area network (WBAN) solutions, the battery life needs to be long, the equipment has to be safe to use and un-harmful also for other electronic devices. From power usage point of view, the most complex high performance receivers are not the best option since they tend to have high power consumption, thus short battery life. In this paper, the performances of receiver types suitable for low cost WBAN solutions are compared in a real hospital environment. The ultra wideband (UWB) transceiver system has been implemented by following the IEEE 802.15.4a standard requirements. The WBAN channel model is based on the measurements carried out in a regular hospital room in Oulu University Hospital, Finland.