This project aims to explore 60 gigahertz (GHz) communication for mobile health (mHealth) applications and build a strong theoretical foundation for designing and evaluating 60GHz Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) performance. Deep understanding will be gained on the fundamental limits of current 2.4GHz-band WBAN in mHealth applications and the promising benefits of 60GHz body area communication, in terms of its smaller device size, higher data rates, reliability, energy efficiency, safety and security. The outcomes of this research significantly advance the discovery and development of theories and algorithms for designing and evaluating 60GHz WBANs, accelerating wider and faster mHealth applications and consequently addressing escalating healthcare costs worldwide. The proposed research is tightly coupled to a strong educational component. The planned outreach activities help motivate and attract minority students, and meet increasing demands from a diverse group of government and industry partners. The proposed project has a favorable impact on both graduate and undergraduate training and education.
The research project establishes the theoretical foundation to support the channel modeling, energy efficiency, and security protection for 60GHz WBANs. This research is challenging due to the unique radio propagation pattern of 60G Hz body area communication, energy and security issues for resource-constrained devices in WBANs. Unlike the traditional 2.4G band communication, using the 60GHz band for WBAN has significant advantages in its compact network coverage, device miniaturization, efficient frequency reuse, reduced interference with adjacent wireless body-centric networks, and high data rates. The project includes (1) developing a new channel modeling for 60GHz WBAN communication; (2) improving energy efficiency in 60GHz WBAN through resource allocations; (3) establishing its security mechanism based on channel reciprocity; (4) conducting performance evaluation for 60GHz WBAN communication. The proposed studies employ new statistical modeling approaches to characterize the 60GHz communication channel over body area, improve its power efficiency and security protection. This research project is especially valuable to mHealth applications, advances the WBAN literature, and may provide new guidelines for the 60GHz WBAN design and deployment.
