The Effect of the Human Body on MIMO-UWB Signal Propagation in an Underground Mine Gallery

Abstract

This paper studies the effects caused by the presence of a human body on a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) ultra-wideband (UWB) communication system. It is very important to study the fading effects caused by the movement of a human body, since these effects become particularly significant when characterizing short-range channels. To address this issue, the wireless channel is measured over 7.5 GHz bandwidth using a 2×2 MIMO system in an underground mine containing a human body. Results suggest that human presence substantially affects both path gain and time dispersion parameters experienced by the link. It is demonstrated that larger K-factors (1.6 dB) can be attributed to the high losses associated with reflections caused by a human body, which in turn reduce the strength of the received scattered signal. Consequently, the presence of a mineworker should be considered when assessing the performance of an underground mine gallery wireless system.