The Effect of Tissues in Galvanic Coupling

Intrabody Communication
Behailu Kibret, MirHojjat Seyedi, Daniel T. H. Lai, Mike Faulkner
Faculty of Health, Engineering and Science, Victoria University
Ballarat Road, Footscray, VIC 3011, Australia
behailu.kibret@live.vu.edu.au
mirhojjat.seyedi@live.vu.edu.au
daniel.lai@vu.edu.au
mike.faulkner@vu.edu.au

AbstractIntrabody Communication (IBC) is a technique that

uses the human body as a transmission medium for electrical
signals to connect wearable electronic sensors and devices. Understanding the contributions of tissues for signal transmission in
IBC, which requires a good understanding of dielectric properties
of biological tissues, paves a way for practical implementation
of IBC in Body Sensor Networks. Presently, there is a lack
of accurate and clear analysis on how the different tissues
affect signal propagation through human body. In this work,
we introduce a simple and efcient approach to understand
the inuence of different tissues on signal propagation through
human body. In this approach, we propose a single Cole-Cole
dispersion for the dielectric spectrum of four tissues (skin, fat,
muscle, and cortical bone) for the frequency range of 100 KHz to
10 MHz. We measured gain and phase shift of galvanic coupling
type IBC on the upper arm of three subjects. It was found that
for the given frequency range, the impedance magnitude of skin
decreases quickly whereas impedances of the other tissues were
less affected. In a similar manner, the impedance phase angle
of skin is up to 60 degrees larger than that of the other tissues.
From the measurement, we observed that these characteristics
of skin highly affect the measured gain and phase shift. As a
result, we infer skin mainly affects signal propagation through
the human body in galvanic coupling.

I. I NTRODUCTION
The accomplishments in technology of telemedicine and
body sensor networks contribute to the fulllment of the
visions in pervasive healthcare systems [1]. In body sensor
networks, the short range wireless communication between
biomedical sensors is mainly obtained using the commonly
used radio frequency based wireless links, like Bluetooth and
Zigbee. These protocols are designed for communications at
distances of several tens of meters by radiating electromagnetic
energy into the air; hence, they intrinsically require excessive
power [2], [3]. As an alternative, a new method of wireless
data transmission that uses the human body as transmission
medium, or Intrabody Communication (IBC), was rst proposed for Personal Area Network (PAN) by Zimmerman [4].
This technique uses near-eld and electrostatic coupling of
signals; consequently, low frequency communication without
electromagnetic radiation can be achieved that potentially
leads to reduced power consumption.

978-1-4673-5501-8/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

Generally, there are two approaches of IBC, namely, capacitive coupling and galvanic coupling. In capacitive coupling,
the signal is transmitted through the human body; and a
return path is formed by the capacitive coupling between the
transmitter and receiver ground electrodes through the external
environment. In this approach, the transmission quality is
affected by the external environment and size of the receiver
ground planes [5]. In galvanic coupling, the signal is applied
differentially between two transmitter electrodes and received
differentially by two receiver electrodes [6]. The signal in the
galvanic coupling approach is conned within the body as it
is transmitted from a pair of transmitter electrodes to a pair
of receiver electrodes, and therefore, is not affected by the
external environment [7].
Many studies have been devoted to the development of
IBC test modules and simulations, rather than characterising
the human body as a signal communication channel. Characterization of the human body as transmission channel was
attempted by [8] using the Finite Element Time Difference
(FETD) approach; but the body impedance components were
represented with capacitor elements for reasons of simplicity.
In their study, the dielectric property of the whole human
body, based on the assumption that it is composed of a
homogenous material, was considered; hence, the inuence of
different tissues was not analysed in detail. In a similar study
by the same authors [7], a cylinderical human arm phantom
was built from elongated insulator holding conductive liquid
(0.9% physiological saline), which has a similar chemical
composition as body uid, for the purpose of characterising
signal propagation through the human body. The complexity
of polarization mechanisms in human body, which give rise
to the intricate dielectric properties of tissues (dispersion),
was modeled by the saline solution due to the similarity of
the gain prole between the human body and the phantom.
Unfortunately, this does not give sufcient information on
how the signal is affected by different tissues of the body.
In a recent study [9], attenuation and dispersion of signals
in IBC was investigated based on the assumption that signal
propagates through the skin; however, the assumption was not
justied with further analysis. A more comprehensive study

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IEEE ISSNIP 2013

of the effect of tissues in galvanic coupling IBC was reported

in [10]; a nite-element model was developed to simulate the
potential distributions in concentric cylinderical representation
of the human upper arm. The inuence of tissues was studied
by observing the output response of the simulation by varying
input parameters representing dielectric properties of some
tissues.
II. M ODEL FOR D IELECTRIC S PECTRUM OF T ISSUES
The dielectric properties of biological tissues and cell suspensions determine the pathways of current ow through the
body; for this reason, they are very important in the analysis
of IBC. The response of a tissue to an applied electrical
stimulation is analysed based on its specic conductivity and
relative permittivity. Since there is a variety of cell types and
cell distributions inside a tissue, the microscopic description of
the response is highly complicated to model. Consequently, we
used a macroscopic approach to characterize eld distribution
in the human body.
In this work, the frequency range selected for the investigation of the transmission medium in galvanic coupled IBC
is from 100 kHz to 10 MHz, which is mainly -dispersion in
biological tissue dielectric spectrum. We set the lower bound
of the frequency range, which is well above the spectrum of
biological signals, based on the low frequency limitation of the
measuring device we used. The upper frequency bound was
selected due to a restriction of using a static circuit model
at higher frequencies as the wavelength of the signals gets
comparable to the dimension of human body. Moreover, at
higher frequencies, signals are not conned within human
body due to the human body antenna effect [11]. In our study,
we investigated signal propagation in human upper arm, which
has smaller dimension compared to the whole body; thus,
we assumed the human body antenna effect at the highest
frequency is negligible.
For the given frequency range, the contributions of dispersion and -dispersion in the dielectric spectrum are
very small; therefore, we propose a model for the dielectric
spectrum of tissues using a single Cole-Cole dispersion with
parameters given by Gabriel dispersion relation [12] as the
second Cole-Cole dispersion. From the proposed model, the
expression for complex relative permittivity (r ) as a function
of angular frequency () is given as
r ()



r () jr ()
n
i
= +
(1)
1n + j
0
1 + (jn )
where n = 2 represents the second dispersion region in


the Gabriel dispersion relation, r and r are the real and
imaginary parts of r (), n refers to the strength of the
dispersion, is permittivity at innite frequency, n is the
relaxation time constant, n is distribution parameter that
controls the width of the dispersion, i is the static ionic
conductivity, and 0 is permittivity of vacuum.
The complex conductivity can be calculated from (1) as




() = () + j () = j0 r ()

(2)



where and are the real and imaginary parts of ().

Due to the simple geometry of the upper arm, we chose
it as the medium of transmission to study galvanic current
coupling. We assumed the major tissues of the upper arm to
be skin, subcutaneous fat, muscle, and cortical bone. In this
study, we investigated these tissues based on their dielectric
and anatomical characteristics to calculate their impedance and
thus their contributions to the pathways of current ow in
galvanic current coupling.
In addition, we took into consideration the anisotropic properties of muscle tissue, which was not previously considered
in other IBC analysis. The anisotropy of muscle tissue is
more pronounced in the -dispersion [13], which is out of
the frequency range we are interested in. Even though the
dielectric data on muscle tissue are the most abundant in
the literature, most of them are limited to lower frequencies.
Moreover, due to frequency dependence of anisotropy, for
frequencies in MHz range, the anisotropic properties of muscle
tend to become insignicant [13]. Consequently, we used the
Cole-Cole dispersion parameters in [12] for both longitudinal
and transversal dielectric property of muscle tissue.
Since the fundamental processes of charge build up and
conduction in tissue occur in parallel [13], we propose a
simple two-component equivalent circuit that represents the
admittance Y of tissues, which is a parallel combination of
conductance G and susceptance B, as shown in (3). For this
model, we assumed homogenous dielectric properties of tissue;
thus, the admittance can be represented in terms of specic
conductivity and relative permittivity, which are estimated by
(1) and (2), respectively.
The complex admittance is given as
Y = G + jB

(3)

and frequency dependant conductance and susceptance are





G() = K () = K0 r ()


B() = K () = K0 r ()

(4)
(5)

where K is a value that depends on the geometry of tissues and

location of measurement electrodes. For simple homogenoues
geometrical volumes, K is ratio of cross-sectional area to
length.
III. I MPEDANCE C HARACTERISTICS OF T ISSUES
Galvanic signal coupling follows the method of coupling
alternating current into the human body. A simplied representation of this method is shown in Fig. 1. The signal
is applied differentially over the two transmitter electrodes.
The majority of the current ows through the shortest path
between the transmitter electrodes; and this current is depicted
as primary ow. The remaining small part of current, which
is the secondary ow, propagates farther into the body due to
the conductive nature of human body. It suffers attenuation
and delay due to the lossy dielectric nature of human body.
This current contributes to the alternating potential difference

319

picked up by the receiver electrodes. The potential difference

gets smaller when the receiver electrodes are located farther
away from the transmitter.

Fig. 2. The four impedance representation of primary and secondary current

ow paths of single tissue. Zt1 represents the impedance of the primary
ow path; Zl1 and Zl2 refer to the impedance of the longitudinal forward
and return path of the secondary ow, respectively; and Zt2 refers to the
transverse path of the secondary ow.

We abstracted the human upper arm with concentric layers

of four tissues to skin, subcutaneous fat, muscle, and cortical
bone. Hence, each of the four tissues in the upper arm can
be represented by four distinctive impedances characterising a
unique galvanic coupled set-up as shown in Fig. 2. The setup depends on the geometry and location of the electrodes,
namely, the inter-electrode and electrode pair separation distance. The four impedances represent the primary and secondary ow paths for a given set-up. In other words, the
impedances represent the loss and delay the current suffers
owing through the two paths. The rst impedance, Zt1 , is the
transverse impedance at the transmitting side; and it represents
the primary current ow that has wider current distribution
due to the majority of current owing on this path. The
second and third impedances, Zl1 and Zl2 , are impedances
of the longitudinal forward and return path of the secondary
current, respectively. Assuming the locations of the electrodes
are symmetrical along the longitudinal axis of the arm, Zl1 and
Zl2 are equal. The fourth impedance, Zt2 , is the transverse
impedance between the receiver electrodes. It impedes the
transverse ow of the secondary current and the voltage drop
across this impedance is detected as potential difference by
the receiver.
The impedances are calculated using,
Z () =

1
Y

()

1
K0 (r () + jr ())


(6)

where Y () is the complex admittance characterising a single

homogenous tissue and calculated based on (3); and the value
of K is adjusted based on the geometrical dimensions of
a given set-up, width and depth of current distribution, and
subject-specic anatomical parameters like tissue thickness.
In order to investigate the effect of tissues in signal propagation, we studied the major tissues in the upper arm based
on their dielectric and anatomical properties. Consequently,
the impedance characteristics of each tissue was compared in
order to see their contribution to current ow in the upper arm.

For simplicity and reason of comparison, we considered a unit

cell volume (i.e., cube of side 1 cm) of each tissue; and as a
result, the value of K is reduced to the ratio of cross-sectional
area to length, which is equal to 1 cm. Moreover, we assumed
a uniform current distribution thoughout the unit cell. Fig. 3
and Fig. 4 show impedance modulus and the corresponding
phase angle, respectively, of each tissue calculated using (6).

Skin
Muscle
Fat
Bone

10

Impedance |Z| (Ohm)

Fig. 1. Current ow paths in galvanic coupling. The primary ow is the

majority of current; and the secondary current is small part of the current that
propagates farther through the conductive medium of human body; and this
current contributes to the potential difference detected by receiver.

10

10

0.1

Frequency (MHz)

10

Fig. 3. Impedance magnitude |Z|, in , of tissues in the upper arm. For

reason of comparison, a unit cell of cube with side 1 cm is used for each
tissue. And the frequency range is between 100 kHz to 10 MHz.

IV. M EASUREMENT S ET- UP

In vivo measurement of galvanic coupling IBC using the
human upper arm as medium of transmission was carried
out, in order to nd the effect of tissue impedances on
signal propagation. The measurements chosen for purpose of
comparison are gain and phase shift of the upper arm to
applied sweep frequency from 100 kHz to 10 MHz.
The measurement set-up, shown in Fig. 5, is composed of a
battery powered VNA ( miniVNA Pro, output impedance Zo =
50 and input impedance Zi = 50 , frequency range 100
kHz to 200 MHz, manufactured by Mini Radio Solutions),
baluns (Coaxial RF transformers, FTB-1-1+, turns ratio of
one, manufactured by Mini-Circuits), and round pre-gelled
self-adhesive Ag/AgCl snap single electrodes (1cm diameter,

320

Skin
Muscle
Fat
Bone

Phase Angle (degree)

80

60

40

Fig. 6. Block diagram of the measurement set-up. B is half of the insertion

loss of the baluns and cables; and H is gain (in dB) of human arm and
electrodes. Vin is the input voltage and Vout is the potential difference
detected.

20

0
0.1

Frequency (MHz)

10

Fig. 4. Impedance phase angle (degree) as function of frequency for tissues

in the upper arm. The frequency range is between 100 kHz to 10 MHz.

manufactured by Noraxon). The VNA is set to sweep constant

interval frequency of range 100 kHz to 10 MHz in 49 points
with 0 dBm output power, which is well below the safety limit
set by International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation
Protection (ICNIRP) [14]. The signal is coupled to the upper
arm by signal electrode A1 and ground electrode A2 via port 1;
and at port 2 the VNA detects the potential difference across
signal electrode B1 and ground electrode B2. The VNA is
connected with laptop, where VNA manufacturer provided
software runs to calculate the gain in dB (S21 ) and phase shift
in degrees based on the measured potential difference and the
input voltage. The block diagram of the measurement set-up
is shown in Fig. 6.

the triceps brachii, respectively

Since the two ports of the VNA share a common ground,
we need to make sure that the current in the arm does not
make a path through the common ground. As a solution to this
problem, we used baluns to isolate the current in human body
so that we can have a galvanic coupled system represented
by our simplied equivalent circuit. The baluns are located at
the transmitter and receiver of the VNA, which are port 1 and
port 2, as shown in Fig. 5, respectively. Additionally, the turns
ratio of the baluns we used is one so that impedance matching
was obtained. However, the use of baluns in the measurement
set-up introduces signal loss. Even though the effect of baluns
can be eliminated by calibration of the VNA, the shape of the
test leads does not allow the use of the available known loads
that are needed for calibration. Therefore, we measured the
insertion loss and phase shift of the baluns and test leads; and
in Fig. 6, B is half of the insertion loss (in dB).
Let G be the gain calculated by the VNA; and assuming
the 50 output impedance of the VNA is transformed across
the balun (turns ratio is one) and included in H, which is the
gain due to human arm and electrodes, then from Fig. 6,
G = 20 log(

Fig. 5. Measurement set-up for galvanic coupling IBC using the human upper
arm as transmission path. The signal is generated on port 1 of the VNA and
coupled through electrodes at A1 and A2; and it is detected at port 2 via the
electrodes attached at B1 and B2.

For measurement, we used three male volunteers with

anatomical and galvanic coupling set-up parameters shown in
Table I. All subjects provided verbal consent to participate in
the study. During the measurement, the subjects are allowed
to stand in a relaxed manner arms by the side to ensure
the current is conned within the arm by avoiding external
physical contacts with the arm. The electrode pair A1-A2, see
Fig. 5, were attched to location of deltoid muscle and near
the upper head of bicep brachii, respectively; and electrode
pair B1-B2 at location of brachialis and the lower head of

|Vout |
)
|Vin |

(7)

and it can be written as G = 2B + H.

And it follows that the measured gain due to the human
arm, electrodes, and impedances of the VNA is H = G 2B,
where B is half of insertion loss of baluns and cables; and
all are given in dB.In a similar fashion, we substracted the
phase shift due to baluns and cables from the measured phase
shift. Fig. 7 shows the measured gain H and Fig. 8 shows the
corresponding phase shifts.
V. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
From Fig. 3, it can be seen that bone has large impedance;
and it is located deep in the lowest layer covered by other
tissues and farther from coupling electrodes. As a result, its
contribution to current ow is very small. Also, due to the
high impedance of fat, its contribution to the longitudinal and
transverse ow path is negligible compared to muscle and skin
that have smaller impedances. Therefore, the transversal and
longitudinal impedances of fat can be approximated as open
circuit. When considering musscle, due to its low impedance,

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TABLE I
A NATOMICAL AND MEASUREMENT SET- UP PARAMETERS OF SUBJECTS

A1-A2 (cm)

B1-B2 (cm)

A-B (cm)

PerimeterA (cm)

PerimeterB (cm)

13.0
14.5
15.0

12.0
12.5
13.5

14.5
11.0
13.0

28.0
32.0
30.5

23.0
29.2
28.0

Subject 1
Subject 2
Subject 3

40

Gain (dB)

50
Subject 2
Subject 3
Subject 1

60

70

80

90
0.1

Frequency (MHz)

10

Fig. 7. Gain (dB) as a function of frequency. Gain measurement, H, for the

three subjects.

180

Phase Shift (Degree)

160

Subject 1
Subject 2
Subject 3

140

angle compared to that of other tissues.

The increase in gain is attributed to the decrease in skin
impedance as shown in Fig 3. The impedances of other
components, like muscle and fat, are approximately constant
for the given frequency range; consequently, their contribution
to the gain is approximately constant throughout the frequency
range. At lower frequencies, the dielectric property of skin
is dominated by the outermost layer of skin called stratum
corneum (SC), which is composed of dead and at skin cells.
The dielectric property of SC depends on the state of the
supercial layers and the water content of the surrounding
air in contact with skin [13]. The effect of SC vanishes
as frequency increases; this phenomenon is highlighted by
the decreasing skin impedance. The phase angle of skin is
larger than that of the other tissues (Fig. 4), which induced a
higher phase shift at the receiver. Therefore, we infer that the
dielectric property of skin primarily dictates the characteristics
of the signal transmitted through the human body, in the case
of galvanic coupling IBC.

120

VI. C ONCLUSION

100
80
60
40
20
0
0.1

Frequency (MHz)

10

Fig. 8.
Phase shift (degree) as a function of frequency. Phase shift
measurement for the three subjects.

intermediate location and larger dimension, it remains a potential current ow path in both longitudinal and transverse
direction. Moreover, skin is located in direct contact with
the coupling electrodes; and its impedance falls as frequency
increases. Thus, skin is another candidate path for current ow
in galvanic signal coupling.
For frequencies less than 1 MHz, the slope of measured gain
tends to vary much among subjects. Over all, the gain increases
as frequency increases from 1 MHz to 10 MHz. From careful
investigation of the gain, we can see that it follows similar
characteristics to the impedance of skin as shown in Fig. 3,
for the given frequency range. Moreover, for frequencies less
than 1 MHz, the phase shifts show differences as large as 160
degrees. Fig. 4 shows that impedance of skin has larger phase

We proposed a model for the dielectric spectrum of tissues

based on a single Cole-Cole dispersion.We also proposed a
macroscopic representation of tissues that characterizes tissues
based on their impedance. We measured galvanic coupling
IBC on the upper arm of three subjects. Finally, we analysed
the effect of tissues on signal propagation based on their
impedance characteristics and measurement data. We found
out that skin tissue primarily affects signal propagation through
the human body in the case of galvanic coupling IBC within
the frequency range of 100 kHz to 10 MHz. A more profound
analysis can be obtained by developing equivalent circuit
model of the human body, which is based on the dielectric
properties of tissues that are represented by the dielectric
spectrum and impedance proposed in this work.
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