Antennas and propagation for body area networks at 60 GHZ

Wu, Xianyue (2014). Antennas and propagation for body area networks at 60 GHZ. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

The advent of wireless body area networks (WBANs) and their use in a wide range of applications from consumer electronics to military purposes, dictates the need to investigate to the behaviour of antennas and wave propagation on the body in depth. Although this area has been extensively studied in the past decade, some issues are still not satisfactorily solved for communication systems for WBANs at ISM bands and UWB such as compact and high efficiency antenna design, privacy and security, interference mitigation and achieving high data rates. This thesis proposed an alternative wireless solution for body area networks by adopting 60 GHz radio. On-body channels at 60 GHz have been characterised using monopole and horn antennas. Horn antennas achieve significantly improved path gain in the stable channels but are susceptible to shadowing in the mobile channels due to body movements. However, interference mitigation and covertness for 60 GHz WBANs at the physical layer are improved due to high attenuation of 60 GHz signals. Significant increase of carrier-to-interference ratio is observed for 60 GHz WBANs compared to 2.45 GHz. A model of estimating the maximum detection distance at a threshold probability for detecting a WBAN wearing soldier in a battlefield is proposed. Fixed-beam directional antennas and reconfigurable antennas are designed for 60 GHz WBANs and channel measurements using these antennas are conducted. Results show beam-reconfigurability of the antenna improves the link performance compared to fixed-beam antennas at 60 GHz.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):