In this chapter, the state of the art of in vivo wireless channel characterization has been presented. Various studies described in the literature are dedicated to the in vivo communication channel, and they consider different parameters in studying various anatomical regions. Furthermore, the location-dependent characteristics of in vivo wireless communication at 915 MHz are analyzed in detail via numerical and experimental investigations. A complete model for the in vivo channel is not available and remains an open research problem. However, considering the expected future growth of implanted technologies and their potential use for the detection and diagnosis of various health-related issues in the human body, the channel modeling studies should be further extended to develop better and more efficient communications systems for future in vivo systems.

Chapter Contents:

• 7.1 Introduction
• 7.2 EM modeling of the human body
• 7.3 EM wave propagation through human tissues
• 7.4 Frequency of operation
• 7.5 In vivo antenna design considerations
• 7.6 In vivo EM wave propagation models
• 7.7 In vivo channel characterization
• 7.7.1 Simulation setup
• 7.7.2 Experimental Setup
• 7.7.3 Results
• 7.7.3.1 Location-dependent characteristics
• 7.7.3.2 Frequency-dependent characteristics
• 7.7.3.3 Time dispersion characteristics
• 7.8 Comparison of in vivo and ex vivo channels
• 7.9 Summary
• Acknowledgements
• References

Inspec keywords: radio networks; wireless channels

Other keywords: health-related issues; vivo communication channel; implanted technologies; anatomical regions; open research problem; vivo wireless channel characterization; vivo wireless channel modeling

Subjects: Radio links and equipment