The influence of the user in body centric antennas and propagation at 3–6 GHz-a Rician K-factor approach

We investigate whether the presence of a human bodyin wearable communications should be considered as part of theradiating structure or as part of the local radio environment. TheRician K-factor was employed as a quantitative measure of theeffect of the user’s body for five environments and two mountinglocations. Presented empirical results indicated that the environmenthad a greater impact on the K-factor values than the positionof the transmit antenna for the ultrawideband signals used,confirming that the human body should be considered primarilyas part of the overall radiating system when the antenna is wornon the body. Furthermore, independent variations also existed inthe K-factor values for the differing antenna-body mounting positions,indicating that as the position changed, then the radiatingeffects and the contribution from the body changed. This is significantfor ensuring body-antenna systems are accurately modeled insystem-level simulations.