Experimental Characterization of the Dependence of UWB Personal Area Networks Channels on Body Mass Index

Due to the short range of wireless Personal Area Networks (PANs), user proximity-induced effects have been identified as a critical issue. The development and performance simulation of PANs will therefore require an accurate channel model that considers the effects of the human body, in particular, various body sizes. This paper presents details of an extensive measurement campaign for wireless PAN Ultrawideband (UWB) multi-antenna propagation channels. The measurements were done in an anechoic chamber environment using a 1 × 4 Single- Input-Multiple-Output (SIMO) array channel sounding system operating in the 2-10 GHz frequency band. Using a total of 60 test subjects, we determine the Body Mass Index (BMI) dependence of channel parameters such as mean path gain, shadowing gain and delay spread. We find that in particular, PAN channel parameters of test subjects with BMI > 30 show considerable differences to those of subjects with typical BMI.