Observations from ultra wideband on-body radio channel measurements

This paper reports the highlights from the recent ultra wideband (UWB) radio channel measurement activities carried out by the Centre for Wireless Communication (CWC), University of Oulu, Finland. The experimental work was targeted to create data for measurement based radio channel modelling. Models are to be used in on-body and on-off body UWB wireless body area network (WBAN) transceiver performance studies. The channel measurements were carried out in a frequency domain using volunteer humans to create a propagation medium of interest. The experiments were done in an anechoic chamber which, at the end, result reference UWB WBAN channel models for future measurements. They will take place in expected WBAN utilization areas, such as hospitals or elderly care or residential homes. The results pointed out interesting features in channel characteristics when cardiac implant is involved.