UWB and mmWave Communication Techniques and Systems for Healthcare - Ultra-Wideband and 60 GHz Communications for Biomedical Applications - page 9

The design of UWB receivers should take into account the other electromagnetic
radiations in the vicinity of the transceiver to maximize received signal-to-noise ratio
and suppress unwanted signal components to prevent front-end saturation. Indeed,
WBAN transmission is usually done over a band already used by other wireless
systems. Furthermore, hospital environments host several electrical and electronic
equipment, and electrical shot noise interference is a UWB type interference source.
Finally, integration of several active BANs in the same environment leads to a con-
siderably high probability that co-channel interference will be present, considering
that in a realistic use-case, each UWB BAN typically consists of less than a dozen
of nodes in the same network.

Wireless Standards for Body Area Networks

Existing wireless standards have difficulty in meeting low power and low complexity
requirements for LDR WBAN devices. For the WBAN and biomedical applications,
the following features are desirable:
• Low power and highly energy efficient,
• Coexistence with other wireless standards,
• Robust to multi-path interference,
• Low radiated RF power (less harmful to human body),
• High penetration capability,
• Can provide high resolution sensing network.
The IEEE 802.15 Task Group 6 was established in 2007 to develop a communication
standard for BAN applications which is a short-range, low-power and highly reliable
wireless communication for use in close proximity to, or inside, a human body [ 16 ].
The LDR radio for such applications needs to be of low complexity and yet robust
to interference and frequency-selective multi-path and also be able to rapidly join or
leave a network. The short physical layer (PHY) synchronization time simplifies the
task of the medium access control (MAC), which is similar to the ones used in low
power narrowband, but not necessarily robust, radios [ 9 ].
The UWB technology has received great attention in recent short-range com-
munication systems and been considered one of the potential candidates for IEEE
802.15.6. This is due to the fact that UWB communications technology may provide
robust, easy-to-implement, low-cost and low-power consumption solutions. In par-
ticular, high penetration capability and high precision ranging with a wide bandwidth
of up to 7.5 GHz (from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz) make it easy to image the organs of human
body for medical applications. Furthermore, low electromagnetic radiation less than
− 41.3 dBm/MHz is safe for human tissue exposure and makes it suitable for hospital

and home applications.

UWB Radar for Medical Imaging

With the UWB dielectric properties, the organic motion-related signal is obtained
from a UWB radar device aimed at the human body. Especially for heart as a car-
diovascular monitor, the UWB radar could detect cardiac contractions, arterial wall