MHz-Band RF Signal Propagation Characteristics on Human-Equivalent Phantom for Intra-body Communication

Near-field coupling communication (NFCC) is a technology that uses the surface of the human body as a data transmission path in the MHz-Band. It is important to assess the loss of signal propagation on the human body to design stable NFCC links. We measured the signal propagation characteristics on and above a phantom which is equivalent to the human body with a transmitter powered by a battery and an electrically isolated probe as a receiver. We also evaluated the signal loss characteristics with a high frequency structure simulator. We confirmed the dependencies of signal loss on distance in both experiments and simulations. We also found from the results that the propagation loss characteristics had similar dependence when we changed the position of the transmitter with that of the receiver.