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In this paper, the scattering parameters of two dipoles placed closely to a flat, homogeneous, biological tissue are characterized in the 2.4-GHz band. The impact of the presence of a flat phantom and of the height of a dipole above the phantom on the reflection coefficient is analyzed through measurements and simulations. The effect of the type of tissue on the reflection coefficient is also investigated by performing simulations for a range of relative permittivity and conductivity combinations spanning the whole range of human tissues at 2.4 GHz. A semiempirical path loss model, validated by measurements and simulations, is presented for wireless communication, for antenna heights from 2 mm up to 5 cm and antenna separations from 10 to 50 cm. Also, the influence of the relative permittivity and conductivity on the path loss is modeled, leading to a range of possible values and lower and upper boundaries for the path loss as a function of the antenna height. The combination of the range with the boundaries results in a best-case and worst-case path loss model for wireless body area networks. The models are validated with measurements on the torso of a human. Index Terms--Dipole antenna, homogeneous flat phantom, path loss, scattering parameters, wireless body area network (WBAN).

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) offer many promising new applications in the area of remote health monitoring. An important element in the development of a WBAN is the characterization of the physical layer of the network, including an estimation of the delay spread and the path loss between two nodes on the body. This paper discusses the propagation channel between two half-wavelength dipoles at 2.45 GHz, placed near a human body and presents an application for cross-layer design in order to optimize the energy consumption of different topologies. Propagation measurements are performed on real humans in a multipath environment, considering different parts of the body separately. In addition, path loss has been numerically investigated with an anatomically correct model of the human body in free space using a 3-D electromagnetic solver. Path loss parameters and time-domain channel characteristics are extracted from the measurement and simulation data. A semi-empirical path loss model is presented for an antenna height above the body of 5 mm and antenna separations from 5 cm up to 40 cm. A time-domain analysis is performed and models are presented for the mean excess delay and the delay spread. As a cross-layer application, the proposed path loss models are used to evaluate the energy efficiency of single-hop and multihop network topologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]