Mitigation of Common Return Path in Wearable Galvanic Coupled Intrabody Communication
8th International Electromagnetic Compatibility Conference, EMC Turkiye 2025, Antalya, Türkiye, 14 - 07 Eylül 2025, (Tam Metin Bildiri)
- Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
- Doi Numarası: 10.1109/emcturkiye67151.2025.11207573
- Basıldığı Şehir: Antalya
- Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
- Anahtar Kelimeler: common return path, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), galvanic coupling (GC), intrabody communication (IBC), isolation transformer (balun), optocoupler
- Akdeniz Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This study explores strategies for suppressing common ground return path in wearable galvanic coupled (GC) intrabody communication (IBC) systems. Specifically, it assesses the effectiveness of two isolation methods - an isolation transformer (balun) and an optocoupler - in minimizing such noise. Three system configurations were analyzed: balun-isolated, optocouplerisolated, and non-isolated. The comparative evaluation results focused on IBC channel gain. Findings indicated that while the balun configuration effectively reduced electromagnetic interference (EMI), it also introduced signal attenuation. In contrast, the non-isolated setup, the configuration where the baluns didn't plugged to both transmitter and receiver side, demonstrated up to 30 dB higher gain at 1 MHz, underscoring a trade-off between noise suppression and signal strength. However, the non-isolated setup exploits a low-impedance ground return, bypassing the body channel and inflating gain; it's included for comparison purposes as it's incompatible with IBC systems. Additionally, the effectiveness of 50 Hz EMI suppression was examined to validate its role in mitigating power line noise.