Progress in antennas and propagation for body area networks

Research in antennas and propagation for body centric wireless communications continues to grow, in response to increasing demands for body area networks (BANs) for healthcare, defence and personal communications and entertainment. This paper will briefly review recent international work, and then report on advances in three UK BAN research centres, Birmingham, Queen Mary and Queens Belfast. The demand for greater security in BAN links could be met by the use of 60GHz channels, and the likely channel characteristics will be discussed and initial results given. New insights into surface wave excitation on the human body has enabled a novel low profile antenna to be designed that maximises link performance where very thin antennas are necessary. Finally advances in the numerical computation are reported, in which the importance of relating phantoms directly to patients to give subject specific simulations and to allow improved modelling of internal organs.