Body Coupled Communication: Towards Energy-Efficient Body Area Network Applications

Abstract

Body Coupled Communication (BCC) utilizes human body itself as a communication medium to provide energy-efficient connectivity between nodes on or around the body. Although BCC is an attractive way for composing a Body Area Network (BAN), the BCC still has several challenges to overcome to be commercially viable. These challenges include 1) varying channel gain over space, time and subject, 2) varying environment, and 3) stringent power consumption requirements. This paper reviews the issues related to BCC, and several efforts to overcome such issues. An example application that benefits from BCC is also discussed.