Assessment of On-Body Skin-Confined Propagation for Body Area Network

This letter assesses the potential of using surface waves to implement secure on-body communications. The propagation medium being the human skin, a transverse resonance method is used to analyze existing modes within the multilayered structure that composes the human tissues. Confinement capabilities as well as propagation losses are investigated for frequency up to 60 GHz. It is shown in particular that the 3-10 GHz band could allow us secure communications up to few tens of centimeters. This frequency band is furthermore considered as ultrawideband channels in the IEEE 802.15.6 standard dedicated to body area networks.