A Simulation Study of Capacitive Body-Coupled Communication along Human Limbs

Abstract

Capacitive Body-Coupled Communication (CBCC) is a promising technique for efficient on-body, RF-EMF communication. C-BCC along the limbs is studied here using numerical simulations between 0.1-1 GHz. C-BCC is modeled as an emitting parallel-plate coupler (PPC) placed on a cylindrical or anatomical human-body phantom. The simulations show that there is an increase in propagation efficiency along the limbs in the studied frequency range, in comparison to propagation in free space, and that this efficiency is frequency dependent. There is a very good agreement between the cylindrical and the anatomical model in terms of propagation trend.