Voxel model construction by kinect for propagation channel simulation

Study of the radio propagation channel is essential to design a reliable wireless system, especially in the Body Area Network (BAN) which will be used for medical/healthcare purposes. In the simulation of the BAN channel, various postures and motions of the human body should be examined for robustness. However, generating this motion data consumes time and is costly since experience with 3D animation software or complex motion capture systems with multiple cameras is required. Therefore, this paper proposes the utilization of Kinect, a motion capture gaming device, for the BAN channel simulation. The data from Kinect, namely the series of joints, depth, and image are converted into series of voxel models. Then, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation using the generated voxel models is performed.