Experimental study of optimal UWB antenna location for ECG application

In this paper, the RF transmission performance on the human body for ultra-wideband wireless body area network (UWB WBAN) applications will be evaluated. The UWB pulse that is generated by the transmitter sensor node has a bandwidth of 500 MHz and centered at 4 GHz. The received signal passes through a receiver frontend circuitry before entering the high speed oscilloscope. In this study, the transmission performance measurement will involve placing the printed omni-directional monopole antenna at various receiver locations near/on human body. An identical transmitter antenna will be positioned on the left chest area which corresponds to the electrocardiography (ECG) location. The peak-to-peak amplitude and waveform from the oscilloscope were recorded. From the study, it was found that the optimal receiver location to receive the strongest signal is at the waist area of the human body when the transmit antenna is vertically polarized and receive antenna is horizontally polarized.