7th International Conference on Body Area Networks

Research Article

Modeling Capacitive Coupling Systems for Body Coupled Communications

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/icst.bodynets.2012.250036,
        author={Ricardo Matias and Rui Escadas and Manuel Cunha and Alexandre Mota},
        title={Modeling Capacitive Coupling Systems for Body Coupled Communications},
        proceedings={7th International Conference on Body Area Networks},
        publisher={ICST},
        proceedings_a={BODYNETS},
        year={2012},
        month={11},
        keywords={body area network (ban) capacitive coupling near field em - electromagnetic fields low power},
        doi={10.4108/icst.bodynets.2012.250036}
    }
    
  • Ricardo Matias
    Rui Escadas
    Manuel Cunha
    Alexandre Mota
    Year: 2012
    Modeling Capacitive Coupling Systems for Body Coupled Communications
    BODYNETS
    ICST
    DOI: 10.4108/icst.bodynets.2012.250036
Ricardo Matias1,*, Rui Escadas1, Manuel Cunha1, Alexandre Mota2
  • 1: IEETA
  • 2: DETI
*Contact email: ricardojsmatias@gmail.com

Abstract

With the exponential grow of personal wireless devices, issues like power consumption, communication security and interference immunity are gaining more importance. Body Area Networks(BAN), due to their reduced range, are by nature relatively low power, but as an answer to achieve even a more confi ned range, Near Field Communications(NFC) and Body Coupled Communications (BCC)have been proposed. While the 1 st is used to link two devices that are physically very close, the BCC concept broadens the communication range to the region around the human body. One of the possible technologies supporting BCC is based upon relatively low frequency capacitive coupling. In this paper we propose a simple model for estimating the gain of a capacitive coupling system. This model has been validated by 3D electromagnetic simulations and double checked with practical experiments. The results are similar within an order of magnitude which, for the intended use of the model, proves to be accurate enough.