Graduate School of Information and Telecommunications, Inha University, Yong-hyun-dong, Nam-Gu, Incheon, Souh Korea.
J Med Syst. 2012 Jun;36(3):1553-67. doi: 10.1007/s10916-010-9617-6. Epub 2010 Nov 3.
Wireless personal area network (WPAN) is an emerging in wireless technology for short range indoor and outdoor communication applications. A more specific category of WPAN is the wireless body area network (WBAN) used for health monitoring. On the other hand, multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) ultra-wideband (UWB) comes with a number of desirable features at the physical layer for wireless communications, for example, very high data rate. One big challenge in adoption of multiband UWB in WBAN is the fact that channel estimation becomes difficult under the constraint of extremely low transmission power. Moreover, the heterogeneous environment of WBAN causes a dense multipath wireless channel. Therefore, effective channel estimation is required in the receiver of WBAN-based healthcare system that uses multiband UWB. In this paper, we first outline the MB-OFDM UWB system. Then, we present an overview of channel estimation techniques proposed/investigated for multiband UWB communications with emphasis on their strengths and weaknesses. Useful suggestions are given to overcome the weaknesses so that these methods can be particularly useful for WBAN channels. Also, we analyze the comparative performances of the techniques using computer simulation in order to find the energy-efficient channel estimation methods for WBAN-based healthcare systems.
无线个域网 (WPAN) 是一种新兴的无线技术，用于短距离室内和室外通信应用。WPAN 的一个更具体的类别是用于健康监测的无线体域网 (WBAN)。另一方面，多带正交频分复用 (MB-OFDM) 超宽带 (UWB) 在物理层为无线通信带来了许多理想的特性，例如非常高的数据速率。在 WBAN 中采用多带 UWB 的一个大挑战是，在极低的传输功率约束下，信道估计变得困难。此外，WBAN 的异构环境导致密集的多径无线信道。因此，在使用多带 UWB 的基于医疗保健的系统的接收器中需要有效的信道估计。在本文中，我们首先概述了 MB-OFDM UWB 系统。然后，我们介绍了针对多带 UWB 通信提出/研究的信道估计技术的概述，重点介绍了它们的优缺点。给出了有用的建议来克服弱点，以便这些方法特别适用于 WBAN 信道。此外，我们使用计算机模拟分析了技术的比较性能，以找到适用于基于 WBAN 的医疗保健系统的节能信道估计方法。
