Wearable Active Antenna Modules for Energy-Efficient Reliable Off-Body Communication Systems

The term off-body wireless communication identifies a particular type of wireless communication that is performed between the human body and any device in the external world. The use of multiple wearable textile antennas was proven to be an effective technique to counter the negative effects of channel fluctuation, that is, to increase reliability or, equivalently, energy efficiency. This chapter overviews the different state-of-the-art techniques and devices, capable of improving reliability - or equivalently power efficiency - of body-centric wireless communication systems. In diversity and, more generally, Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) communication systems, the different available replicas of the signals are processed using several techniques, aiming at the mitigation of errors on the received data stream. The chapter presents a comprehensive design paradigm for the design of energy-efficient active wearable antennas, based on the combination of circuit and full-wave optimization.