Characterization of the on-body channel in an outdoor environment at 2.45 GHz

A characterization of the fading observed in an 8-node wireless body area network in an outdoor environment is presented. When the user was stationary the degree of fading for on-body links was found to be low, with estimated Nakagami m parameters Gt 1. However, when the user was mobile, depending on the body dynamics in the vicinity of the node location and transmission path length, fading significantly increased, characterized by lower m values. Level crossing rates are also presented and used to estimate the maximum Doppler frequency for each individual on-body channel.