Performance evaluation on dual-mode transceivers in wireless body area networks

Abstract

Wireless body area network (BANs) have attracted a lot of attention as a future technology of wireless networks. Wireless BANs are generally divided into two kinds of groups, i.e., on-body BANs and in-body BANs. However, the performance requirements and channel propagation characteristics of the two BANs are quite different from each other, that is, wireless signals are approximately transmitted along the human body as a surface wave in on-body BANs, on the other hand, the signals are transmitted through the human tissue in in-body BANs. As a solution for this problem, this paper develops a structure of dual-mode transceivers, which is composed of transmitters for in-body and on-body communications and a receiver for the both communications. Then, we evaluate the communication performance of the dual-mode transceivers via a computer simulation with realistic channel models, which can well represent the propagation characteristics of on-body and in-body communications. Our computer simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of the dual-mode transceiver structure in wireless BANs.