Electromagnetic characteristics of body area network using magnetically-coupled wearable coils worn on bent arm

Abstract

We have proposed body area networks using magnetic coupling between coils worn on an arm, and confirmed that the transmission characteristics were improved more than 20 dB compared with those of the conventional human body communication using electrodes in contact with the body. However, the arm will be bent with various angles in daily life. In this paper, electromagnetic characteristics such as transmission characteristics between the wearable coils worn on the bent arm and magnetic field distributions around the coils and arm were investigated. As a result, the transmission characteristics were stable and hardly influenced against bending the human arm with various angles, and sufficient biocompatibility with specific absorption rate less than 2 W/kg was confirmed.