An Insight into Creeping Electromagnetic Waves around the Human Body

The electromagnetic wave propagation around human body torso is modelled by considering elementary electric and magnetic dipoles over an infinite muscle-equivalent cylinder. The poles in the spectral domain Green's function with smallest imaginary part are found to correspond to creeping wave propagation coefficients which predict the general trend in propagation around human body. In addition, it was found that axial magnetic field component is crucial for communication via creeping waves since it generates modes with smaller field decay compared to axial electric field. The developed model may thus serve as a practical guideline in design of on-body wearable antennas. The theoretical considerations are verified with simulations and measurements on the prototype of PIFA antenna placed on the human body.