System-on-a-Chip Radio Transceivers for 60-GHzWireless Body-Centric Communications - Ultra-Wideband and 60 GHz Communications for Biomedical Applications - page 174

Moreover, at the millimeter-waves (mm-waves) it is possible to implement very
directional antennas, thus allowing the implementations of highly directional com-
munication links. Line-Of-Sight (LOS) communication may help in alleviating the
design challenges of the wireless transceivers. All together, these characteristics of
the 60-GHz radio channel have attracted the interests of both industry and academy.
One of the most promising applications that will benefit from the huge amount of
bandwidth available in the 60-GHz range is the uncompressed High-Definition (HD)
video communication [ 6 ]. The reasons that make the uncompressed video streaming
attractive are that the compression and decompression (codec) in transmitters and
receivers, respectively, exhibit some drawbacks such as latency which is unacceptable
in real time applications (e.g., videogames), and compatibility issues between devices
that use different codec techniques. To date, this research has reached a considerable
level of maturity, and the first commercial products are appearing on the market [ 7 ].
In addition to the previous mass-market applications, it is also interesting to
consider the potential opportunity offered by wireless body-centric networks [ 8 , 9 ].
These emerging applications have attracted the interests of several research groups
worldwide. To date, most of the research efforts have been limited to antennas and
propagation, and addressed to scenarios for military applications [ 10 ].
The feasibility of 60-GHz SoC transceivers for wireless body-centric commu-
nications is still not addressed. The feasibility for wireless uncompressed video
communications has reached an advanced level of development, mainly limited to
fixed communication infrastructures (e.g., home video, etc.), demonstrating the fea-
sibility in advanced microelectronic technologies. In spite of all this, the idea of
translating these developments directly into wireless body-centric communications
could be unsatisfactory, since these last applications require ad hoc developments
characterized by high mobility (i.e., wearable devices), and thereby very low power
consumptions that can be supported by light batteries.
Moreover, despite the development of military applications which can rely on
large investments, the opportunity to justify the development and fabrication costs
of SoC implementations in advanced microelectronic technologies would require a
potential market of several million units. With this in mind, it is interesting consid-
ering the hypothesis that this emerging technology, currently explored for military
applications, could be extended also to a number of civil applications, allowing a
justification of costs and advancing of technology for the benefits of humanity. In
particular, for the increasing needs of communication, sensing, and networking for
biomedical and environmental applications. Despite it could be not easy to figure
out the details of the possible future civil applications, it is still possible to envisage
application scenarios for the future challenges of the information and communication
society, such as smart cities [ 11 ], augmented reality [ 12 ], personalized health [ 13 ],
sport and fitness [ 14 ], emergency operators [ 15 ], and any other potential needs of in-
terfacing electronic systems, communication, and data infrastructures (e.g., wireless
local area networks, cellular phone networks, satellite networks, cloud computing
networks, etc.) with the biological and environmental systems, supporting mobility,
continuity, and diversity of services in a variety of scenarios including urban (i.e.,
hospitals [ 16 ]) and rural environments.