Adaptive STFC MB-OFDM UWB system for high speed WBAN applications

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) are networks of sensors and communicating devices placed inside or in the proximity of a human body. Their initial and primary application is for real-time health monitoring systems to address the ever-increasing cost of health care. Other WBAN applications have emerged, such as in sport, entertainment, and military. To bring an international accord on the implementation of WBAN systems, the IEEE 802.15 Task Group (TG) 6 has released the WBAN standard, which includes both narrow bands and the ultra-wide band (UWB) 3.1 - 10.6 GHz, namely the Impulse Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR-UWB). The physical layer supports the maximum data rate of 15.6 Mbps on a 499 MHz bandwidth. However, the emergence of future bandwidth hungry WBAN applications and the need to support the deployment of a larger number of sensor devices require a much higher data rate and energy efficient WBAN systems. In addition, the WBAN channels are naturally very dispersive, which is a good condition for a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) application. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to investigate a high speed, robust, and energy efficient adaptive WBAN platform. Accordingly, this thesis studies the adaptive Space-Time-Frequency Coded Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (STFC MB-OFDM) UWB WBAN system.