Wireless body sensor networks for health-monitoring applications

This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Physiological Measurement. The publisher is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0967-3334/29/11/R01

Measured pedestrian movement and bodyworn terminal effects for the indoor channel at 5.2 GHz

[Summary]: Human body effects such as antenna-body interaction and scattering caused by pedestrian movement are important indoor radio propagation phenomena at microwave frequencies. This paper reports measurements and statistical analysis of the indoor narrowband propagation channel at 5.2 GHz for two scenarios: a fixed line-of-sight (LOS) link perturbed by pedestrian movement and a mobile link incorporating a moving bodyworn terminal. Two indoor environments were considered for both types of measurements: an 18 m long corridor and a 42 m2 office. The fixed-link results show that the statistical distribution of the received envelope was dependent on the number of pedestrians present. However, fading was slower than expected, with an average fade duration of more than 100 ms for a Doppler frequency of 8.67 Hz. For the bodyworn terminal, mean received power values were dependent on whether or not the user's body obstructed the LOS. For example, in the corridor the average non-line-of-sight (NLOS) pathloss was 5.4 dB greater than with LO