Investigation of Creeping Wave Propagation Around the Human Head at ISM Frequencies

The concept of wireless body area network (WBAN) technology holds great potential for many applications such as continuous, remote healthcare monitoring. To develop a power-efficient and reliable wearable system, a fundamental understanding of the propagation medium must be developed. This letter investigates the creeping wave transmission path loss and phase delay of a horizontal path and a vertical path around the human head from 300 MHz to 3 GHz. Measurements are compared to numerical simulations and a theoretical model of the same scenario. The dominant wave mechanisms are extracted from measurement data and compared with theory predictions.