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Ultra wideband (UWB) communications is a promising technology for wireless body area networks (WBAN) due to its very low power emission and robustness against multipath fading characteristics. The use of WBANs in the areas of healthcare and telemedicine is being seriously considered as a way of increasing the quality of medical services and of keeping under control the associated costs. Because the human body has a complex shape and consists of different tissues it is expected that the propagation of electromagnetic signals will have different characteristics than the ones found in other environments, e.g., offices, streets, etc. The contribution of the work described in this paper is to expand the knowledge of the UWB channel, for WBAN applications, in the frequency range of 3-11 GHz under scenarios expected to be found in the medical care field. The experimental measurements are used to develop UWB channel models which can then be applied to the design of efficient communications protocols.Keywords: wireless medical communications; wearable computing; medical wireless sensors; health monitoring.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Taparugssanagorn, A., Pomalaza-Ráez, C., Isola, A., Tesi, R., Hämäläinen, M. and Iinatti, J. (2011) 'Preliminary UWB channel study for wireless body area networks in medical applications', Int. J. Ultra Wideband Communications and Systems, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp.14-22. Preliminary UWB channel study for wireless body area networks in medical applications15 Matti Hämäläinen received his MSc, LicTech and DrTech in Electrical Engineering from the

Abstract-Wireless body area networks (WBAN) are being considered as one of the most suitable technologies for remote health monitoring. This technology has the potential to increase the quality of medical care as well as keeping under control the associated costs. Due to the complex shape of the human body and its different tissues it is expected that the propagation characteristics of the radio channel, when measured in close proximity of a human body, to be different than those found in other scenarios. The work described in this papers aims to expand the knowledge of the ultra-wideband (UWB) channel in the frequency range of 3.1-10 GHz, for the case of WBANs, under static and dynamic scenarios. Two different type of antennas are used, the SkyCross SMT-3TO10M-A and the P200 BroadSpec TM . To minimize the effects of the environment the measurements were conducted in an anechoic chamber.

Abstract-This paper introduces some of the activities carried out in a medical ICT related ultra wideband (UWB) research at the Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland. The paper concentrates on the proposed body area network based system architecture for wireless medical communications and gives also a summary on experimental body area network radio channels models. The network architecture under discussion consists of parts that have already been implemented but also parts that require studies in more details before utilization and implementation in operative healthcare network. For detailed communication system design, accurate channel models are also needed. This paper discusses on UWB channel models that are suitable to be used in wireless body area network research.