The effect of body shape and gender on wireless Body Area Network on-body channels

Technological advancements have made possible the emergence of Body Area Networks (BANs). There are numerous on-body channel characterizations in the literature performed on a phantom or a single human subject. In this paper, using multiple subjects, we consider the effect of body shape and gender on the on-body channel. A characterization of a narrowband on-body to on-body channel among different subjects is presented. The paper investigates the relationship between the propagation and the subject's physical characteristics. The investigation is performed at 2360 MHz; the new medical band undergoing FCC approval. Our results show that the path loss in women is less than that in men and the level of fade is usually higher in men than women. They also show that involuntary movements along with respiration cause small-scale fading that follows the Rice distribution.