Body Area Network Channel Measurement and Modeling for Extended-Reality Applications

Extended reality (XR) headsets often need to communicate with devices mounted on the body, which could be sensors or computation devices, creating a body area network (BAN). To design reliable communication systems for these purposes, an accurate model for the propagation channel in such a head-centric BAN needs to be established. This paper presents a set of measurements of ultrawideband (UWB) channels of such a BAN when the user is in an indoor office environment. Based on this, we derive a novel model for link gain as a function of the location of the device on the body. This model distinguishes the power received via (i) on-body propagation, (ii) reflections from close-by objects, and (iii) reflections from other parts of the environment. For the on-body and near-by object reflections, we further introduce a new model for the link gain that depends on both the Euclidean distance and the azimuthal positions of the RX antenna elements on the circumference of the body. The measurements and derived models are first motivated by measurements on an RF phantom. Measurements on four human users covering all combinations of male/female and low/high body mass index are then used to parameterize this model.