engleski

Effect of Transmitter and Receiver Electrodes Configurations on the Capacitive Intrabody Communication Channel from 100 kHz to 100 MHz

In the intrabody communication (IBC) the human body behaves as a medium that connects transmitter and receiver, which are placed directly on the skin, or are in its close proximity. The signal transmission path is closed through the human body, and the return signal path is closed capacitively through the environment. Hence, the received signal level is affected by the orientation of the transmitter with respect to the receiver, the number of ground electrodes connected to the body, the size of the receiver ground plane, and the surrounding environment. Both a transmitter and a receiver have a signal and a ground electrode, which can be connected to the human body in two ways: predominantly resistive and predominantly capacitive. In a predominantly resistive configuration, signal and ground electrodes are in a direct contact to the skin. The contact is obtained using standard Ag/AgCl electrodes, placed 2 cm apart. In a predominantly capacitive configuration, signal electrode is connected to the skin using standard Ag/AgCl electrode, and the ground electrode is a bare copper electrode placed on a plastic housing, 2 cm above the signal electrode. In this paper we measured transmission characteristics of the intrabody communication system in a frequency range from 100 kHz to 100 MHz using battery-powered network analyzer, for all four transmitter- receiver electrode configurations (resistive- resistive, capacitive-resistive, resistive- capacitive, and capacitive-capacitive), at five different distances along the arms (namely, 4 cm, 16 cm, 28 cm, 36 cm, and 120 cm). We proved that intrabody communication channel was reciprocal. The highest transmission gain was measured for capacitive-capacitive configuration, regardless of the distance between the transmitter and receiver.

Intrabody communication (IBC) ; capacitive coupling ; transmitter electrode configuration ; receiver electrode configuration ; transmission characteristics

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