Impact of an aortic valve implant on body surface UWB propagation: A preliminary study

Efficient transceiver design in body area networks requires in-depth understanding of the propagation channel which in this case involves the human body. Several studies have been done to characterize RF propagation on the body surface and determine the parameters of an appropriate model. However, the possible effect of an already existing medical implant on body surface propagation has not been considered until during a recent measurement experiment. There it was discovered that an aortic implant may have an impact on Ultra Wide-Band (UWB) propagation between wearable nodes that are in the vicinity of the implant location. In this paper, we use a 3D immersive visualization environment to study and observe the impact of an aortic implant on body surface propagation. Specifically, we focus on the UWB impulse response of the channel between nodes located around the upper body. The difference in the obtained impulse responses (for scenarios with and without the implant) both in measurement and simulation points to the possible impact that such medical implants could have on body surface RF propagation.