Body Channel Communication for Energy-Efficient BAN

Abstract

Recent advances in semiconductor technologies and computing systems have led to the proliferation of mobile and portable electronic devices opening the ubiquitous mobile computing environment. A wearable computing technology is an example for the user to facilely place such devices around the human body. The wearable electronic devices (e.g., wrist-type computers, earphones, video eyeglasses, and head-mounted displays) and sensors offer potentials for wide range of applications from the health management to ambient intelligence [1–2]. Since such devices are distributed on the human body, a body area network (BAN) can provide the connectivity between each wearable device with the communication range of the human body, corresponding to 1–2 m. Moreover, it should get powered by a very small battery in order to minimize its physical size and get connected through simple interfaces for the convenience of the use. Since the wearer utilizes wearable electronic devices and sensors continuously anytime and anywhere, the devices require a low power data transceiver employing energy-efficient communication schemes and also the high data rate operation needs for exchanging multimedia data such as audio or video over BANs.