Measurements and statistical analysis of the transmission channel between two wireless body area networks at 2.45GHz and 5.8GHz

Interference between two wireless body area networks at 2.45GHz and 5.8GHz has been investigated. A series of data sets have been gathered in an indoor environment - standard office - for random realistic activities and body orientations, and have been subject to statistical analysis. It is clear that significant variations of the path gain can occur due to the changing positions and orientations of the wireless network users, and the changing postures of their bodies. Chi-square goodness-of-fit test was used to assess whether the signal fading belongs to one of a number of known of probability distributions (namely, gamma, lognormal, loglogistic, Nakagami, Weibull and Rician). Our results show that the gamma distribution is an excellent candidate for describing the fading between two wireless body area networks. This paper presents results of characterization of interfering signal strength variations with the distance, and a number of significant statistical parameters, including level crossing rate and average fade duration.