Statistical characterization of the electromagnetic environment in a hospital

Thanks to advances in digital technology many hospitals are becoming populated with wireless medical applications to control life critical functions. Electromagnetic interference can cause severe performance degradations on these wireless applications. Several accidents have been reported which calls for a more thorough characterization of these interferences in areas where critical wireless applications are used. In this paper the results of electromagnetic interference measurements performed in a hospital are presented. The amplitude probability distribution (APD) and the inter arrival pulse probability distribution (PSD) are used to characterize these environments. In addition, Middleton parameters can be calculated from the measured data. This study is considered to be a first effort to characterize the 20 MHz-2500 MHz band in hospitals.