Modelling of propagation and interaction between body-mounted antennas, and the modelling of Body-Centric, context aware application scenarios

Body area networks consist of a number of sensor placed in proximity or inside the human body. The paper presents a simulation environment based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD), for radio propagation modelling of body-centric wireless devices. The proposed numerical tool has been applied to characterize the body losses in implanted devices, and to study the body communication channel in a hospital environment. The results highlighted the significance of subject specific modeling when designing wireless implants, and body worn systems.