A Cross-Polarisation Discrimination Analysis of Off-Body Channels in Passenger Ferryboat Environments

There is a need for investigating radio channels for Body Area Networks considering the depolarisation phenomenon and new types of environments, since these aspects are becoming very important for systems design and deployment. This paper presents an analysis of cross-polarisation discrimination for off-body channels based on a measurement campaign performed in a passenger ferryboat, i.e., where all walls, floors and ceilings are made of metal. Firstly, the measurement campaign, including test-bench and scenarios, as well as the analysis approach, including classification of mutual antennas’ orientation and definition of parameters are described. The analysis of results includes distance, on-body antennas location and several scenarios, addressing statistical parameters. Mean values for the cross-polarisation discrimination are in the range of [3.7, 6.8] dB while the standard deviation is around 10.0 dB. There is no dependence of the cross-polarisation discrimination on distance, within the measured range (up to 16 m). It is found that there is no correlation between radio signals received by vertically and horizontally polarised receiving antennas, hence, enabling the application of polarisation diversity in Body Area Networks. The Normal Distribution is the best fit for describing cross-polarisation discrimination, as shown by the analysis of goodness of fit parameters, since it passes many of the tests.