Human body: The future communication channel for WBAN

WBAN is a network of wireless sensor nodes in which in- and/or on-body sensor nodes communicate with central hub as well as with each other. It provides effective health monitoring services along with many other applications. WBAN uses either RF or non-RF based communication techniques. Human body communication (HBC) is a non-RF technique, which utilizes the human body as a communication channel. This paper surveys the typical HBC schemes and compares the performance of RF-based and HBC-based WBANs.