Title: Medical applications adapting ultra wideband: a system study

Authors: Harri Viittala, Begum N. Nahar, Matti Hamalainen, Jari Iinatti

Addresses: Centre for Wireless Communications, The Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, The University of Oulu, Oulu, 90014, Finland. ' Centre for Wireless Communications, The Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, The University of Oulu, Oulu, 90014, Finland. ' Centre for Wireless Communications, The Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, The University of Oulu, Oulu, 90014, Finland. ' Centre for Wireless Communications, The Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, The University of Oulu, Oulu, 90014, Finland

Abstract: In order to find the best solution of physical layer for medical wireless body area network (WBAN), two single-band ultra wideband (UWB) systems are studied, i.e., direct sequence ultra wideband (DS-UWB) and ultra wideband frequency modulation (UWB-FM). UWB is considered to be one of the most feasible techniques among those that can be applied to medical WBAN since it provides low power consumption, simple transceiver structure and good coexistence characteristics due to a low power spectral density. The simulation results indicate that UWB-FM has better performance than non-coherent DS-UWB in overall. It was expected that coherent DS-UWB with multiple rake fingers gives the best results, and this was justified by the simulation results.

Keywords: medical applications; ultra wideband communications; single-band UWB; direct sequence ultra wideband; DS-UWB; ultra wideband frequency modulation; UWB-FM; wireless body area networks; medical WBAN; wireless BANs; wireless networks; simulation; medical ICT; e-health; electronic healthcare.

DOI: 10.1504/IJUWBCS.2010.034305

International Journal of Ultra Wideband Communications and Systems, 2010 Vol.1 No.4, pp.237 - 247

Published online: 31 Jul 2010 *

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