Modeling, validation and performance evaluation of body shadowing effect in ultra-wideband networks

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is an emerging wireless technology with high data rates and low transmission power, which is very suitable for high-speed, short-range multimedia applications such as the Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) indoor distribution. However, human body shadowing is very common in any office or household environment, and can dramatically affect the UWB link performance when the significant propagation paths are blocked. In this paper, we build an analytical model for the Body Shadowing Effect (BSE) on indoor UWB channels based on the IEEE 802.15.3a standard and the channel reciprocity property. The BSE model and the reciprocity property of UWB channels in both the baseband and the radio frequency band are validated with extensive measurement. We further apply the extended BSE model in the analysis of application-layer Quality-of-Service (QoS) metrics for IPTV services, and derive the packet loss rate of the IPTV streams analytically and obtain the admission region to ensure the QoS. The work is of particular importance for the performance evaluation of UWB networks and the service provisioning for IPTV indoor distribution.