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Off Body UWB Channel Characterisation
Investigators: Philip Catherwood & William Scanlon
This project aims to investigate channel characteristics for an off-body UWB radio link with both single and MIMO (multiple in multiple out)
antenna topologies and in a variety of specifically targeted environments (e.g., corridor, office, hospital, anechoic chamber, reverberation chamber)
and body-antenna positions (e.g., waist, chest, wrist).
The UWB channel is best described by the delay statistics of the received signal after such as mean excess delay and RMS time delay spread.
The work will specifically investigate how UWB radio signals are affected by the presence of human bodies (both of the wearer and pedestrian traffic), and by transmit and receive antennas in relative line of sight (LOS) or non-LOS (NLOS), conducted for both stationary and mobile scenarios. Received signal strength values are also investigated to quantify pathloss in the indoor radio environment.
Achievements to date:
- Hardware built and tested using an UWB radio pair & radio-over-fibre technology
- Processing software code written to analyse recorded data
- Measurements taken using a single UWB antenna in a classroom, corridor, anechoic chamber, reverberation chamber and hospital environment
- Many body-antenna positions considered
Example Results
The graphs show empirical results were taken for 2 LOS mobile journeys in a hospital environment for the antenna positioned on the chest and then on the waist.
The CDFs are also modelled using mathematical distribution functions (blue lines in the bottom two figures).
Publication Output
- P.A. Catherwood & W.G. Scanlon, 'Link characteristics for an off-body UWB transmitter in a hospital environment,' to be presented at Loughborough Antennas & Propagation Conf., Nov. 2009
- P.A. Catherwood & W.G. Scanlon, 'Wearable ultra-wideband channel sounder for MIMO antenna systems,' 16th IET Irish Signals and Systems Conf. (ISSC), pp. 224–229, Galway, Ireland, Jun. 2008. [doi: 10.1049/cp:20080667]