Understanding the Role of Magnetic and Magneto-Quasistatic Fields in Human Body Communication

With the advent of wearables, Human Body Communication (HBC) has emerged as a physically secure and power-efficient alternative to the otherwise ubiquitous Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). Whereas the most investigated HBC modalities have been Electric and Electro-quasistatic (EQS) Capacitive and Galvanic, recently Magnetic HBC (M-HBC) has been proposed as a viable alternative. Previous works have investigated M-HBC through application points-of-view, without exploring its fundamental working principle. In this paper, a ground up analysis is performed to study the possible effects and contributions of the human body channel in M-HBC over 1kHz to 10 GHz, by electromagnetic simulations and supporting experiments. The results show that while M-HBC can be successfully operated as a body area network, the human body itself plays a minimal or negligible role in its functionality. For Magneto-quasistatic (MQS) HBC (frequencies less than ∼30 MHz), the body is transparent to the quasistatic magnetic field. Conversely for higher frequencies, the conductivity of human tissues attenuates Magnetic HBC fields due to induced Eddy currents, preventing the body to support efficient waveguide modes. With this conceptual understanding developed, different modes of operations of MQS HBC are outlined for both high impedance capacitive and 50Ω termination cases, and their performances are compared with EQS HBC for similar sized devices, over varying distances between TX and RX. The resulting report presents a fundamental understanding towards M-HBC operation and its contrast with EQS HBC, aiding HBC device designers to make educated design decisions, depending on application scenarios.