Full-spectrum phantoms for cm-wave and medical wireless communications

Radio communications are demanding wider bandwidths and therefore, higher operation frequencies. From a performance point of view, body influence over mobile communications is increasing as the frequency does. This is a major issue in the next generation of communications but even more in Body Area Networks, where the body is the main propagation medium. Propagation losses are extremely high when the signal passes through several body tissue layers of different nature and high dielectric constants. Apart from this, devices that work in this environment are restricted to transmissions at low power. For this reason, and taking into account the battery lifespan, they should be tested to improve their performance. From a health perspective, the assessment of the specific absorption rate of body by the surrounding networks is a concern. Medical devices but also the increase of workaday wireless technologies involve higher electromagnetic exposure. Phantoms become the tool that researchers and manufacturers use to certify or test the devices and deal with these issues. However, these phantoms are limited in number of tissues and usable bandwidth. This work aims at presenting phantoms based on acetonitrile solutions in a wider band than previously reported, in particular from 18 to 26.5 GHz.