Augmented MIMO: Body-Mounted Antennas for Tiny Wearable Devices
Multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO), which uses multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver, is now an essential technique for increasing communication capacity without widening the occupied radio bandwidth. However, antenna arrays within a deep subwavelength dimension degrade MIMO performan...
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MDPI AG
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/2/557 |
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| author | Akihito Noda |
| author_facet | Akihito Noda |
| author_sort | Akihito Noda |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO), which uses multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver, is now an essential technique for increasing communication capacity without widening the occupied radio bandwidth. However, antenna arrays within a deep subwavelength dimension degrade MIMO performance due to mutual coupling between the antenna elements. In particular, very small devices such as smartwatches encounter this problem. To address this, we propose Augmented MIMO, mounting a larger antenna array on the human body, for small wearable devices. The experimental results demonstrate throughput improvement with the proposed scheme, even if the overall antenna gain decreases with external body-mounted antennas. This work contributes to the future development of yet another scheme to improve the communication performance of small wearable devices—using the human body as a spacious antenna fixture. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a58cefb7ce0942349b345625bcfb240c |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2076-3417 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Applied Sciences |
| spelling | doaj-art-a58cefb7ce0942349b345625bcfb240c2025-01-24T13:19:49ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172025-01-0115255710.3390/app15020557Augmented MIMO: Body-Mounted Antennas for Tiny Wearable DevicesAkihito Noda0School of Systems Engineering, Kochi University of Technology, Kochi 782-8502, JapanMultiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO), which uses multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver, is now an essential technique for increasing communication capacity without widening the occupied radio bandwidth. However, antenna arrays within a deep subwavelength dimension degrade MIMO performance due to mutual coupling between the antenna elements. In particular, very small devices such as smartwatches encounter this problem. To address this, we propose Augmented MIMO, mounting a larger antenna array on the human body, for small wearable devices. The experimental results demonstrate throughput improvement with the proposed scheme, even if the overall antenna gain decreases with external body-mounted antennas. This work contributes to the future development of yet another scheme to improve the communication performance of small wearable devices—using the human body as a spacious antenna fixture.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/2/557multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO)wearable systemswireless communications |
| spellingShingle | Akihito Noda Augmented MIMO: Body-Mounted Antennas for Tiny Wearable Devices Applied Sciences multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) wearable systems wireless communications |
| title | Augmented MIMO: Body-Mounted Antennas for Tiny Wearable Devices |
| title_full | Augmented MIMO: Body-Mounted Antennas for Tiny Wearable Devices |
| title_fullStr | Augmented MIMO: Body-Mounted Antennas for Tiny Wearable Devices |
| title_full_unstemmed | Augmented MIMO: Body-Mounted Antennas for Tiny Wearable Devices |
| title_short | Augmented MIMO: Body-Mounted Antennas for Tiny Wearable Devices |
| title_sort | augmented mimo body mounted antennas for tiny wearable devices |
| topic | multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) wearable systems wireless communications |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/2/557 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT akihitonoda augmentedmimobodymountedantennasfortinywearabledevices |