A Body Channel Communication Technique Utilizing Decision Feedback Equalization

• Published in: IEEE access 2020, Vol.8, p.198468-198481
• Main Authors: Lee, Ji-Hoon, Ko, Jaehyun, Kim, Kwangmin, Choi, Minsoo, Sim, Jae-Yoon, Park, Hong-June, Kim, Byungsub
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Body-channel communication (BCC); Channel estimation; Clocks; Communication; decision feedback equalization (DFE); Decision feedback equalizers; Encoding; Equalization; Feedback; human-body communication (HBC); Interference; Intersymbol interference; intra-body communication (IBC); Real-time systems; Transceivers; wireless body area network (WBAN)
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3034999

This article presents the body channel communication technique that first adopts decision feedback equalisation. For the first time, we characterised post-cursor intersymbol interference of a single-bit pulse response of a human body channel for decision feedback equalisation achieving the first body channel communication faster than 100 Mb/s. In the proposed technique, an 8-tap decision feedback equaliser is utilised at the receiver to compensate for intersymbol interference of the body channel. The experimental results show that the proposed prototype transceiver achieved the highest data rates of 150 Mb/s and 10 Mb/s along 20-cm and about 100-cm body channels, respectively. Compared to the previous best result measured for the same body-channel distance of about 100 cm, the data rate is improved by ten times, showing that the proposed technique can significantly increase the speed of body channel communication.