Signal correlation between wearable antennas in body area networks in multipath environment

This paper introduces a statistical analysis of the cross-correlation between the signals received at different antennas on a body. The calculation of the cross-correlation is based on simulations in CST for multiple patch antennas operating at 2.45 GHz, located on a voxel model for plane wave excitations in [0°, 180°] with a 5° resolution. The influence of the separation between antenna and the body surface in the range [0, 2λ] has also been analysed. The results allow to identify 3 classes of antennas, i.e., co-directed (CD), cross-directed (XD) and opposite-directed (OD). The CD class is characterised by the highest average cross-correlation, equal to 0.95, whereas XD and OD present values of 0.79 and 0.67, respectively. The standard deviation of the cross-correlation for CD and OD is low, being the highest for XD, 0.13. In general, the direction of arrival is more important for the cross-correlation than the separation between antenna and body.