To view complete details for this event, click here to view the announcement

 

 

Dear Colleague,

On behalf of the IEEE Sweden VT/COM/IT Chapter in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology, we would like to invite you to the following IEEE Technical hybrid seminar by Prof. Anja Skrivervik, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.

Title: Link budgets for In-, On-, and Off-Body communication: an impossible dream?

Time: 16:00-17:00 CEST Tue June 9, 2026.

On site: E2 Room 2503, Fredrik Lamm, EDIT building, Hörsalsvägen 11, Campus Johanneberg, Göteborg

Online: Microsoft Teams Need help?

Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/374408519758169?p=q2ehXeeUC1z4dQ7l5Q

Meeting ID: 374 408 519 758 169

Passcode: hH3sn9eG

Local host: Prof. Tommy Svensson, tommy.svensson@chalmers.se

 

Abstract: Wireless Communication with an implanted sensor represents a huge challenge, for three reasons: first, an implant is either injectable, ingestible, or implantable, which means in any case it has to be physically small. This implies that the antenna used for the link must be highly miniaturized. Second, biological tissues are very lossy, and will thus largely attenuate any wireless signal having to pass through them.  Finally, as the implant is placed in a living host, levels of powers that may be used for a wireless link are heavily limited by regulations, in order to protect the host from exposure to electromagnetic fields. Thus, it is of paramount importance that such wireless linked are designed in a way achieving the best possible efficiency in the transmission.  
To this aim, good propagation models for electromagnetic fields through biological tissues are required. They should be precise enough to enable a good link budget at the planning stage of a project, and simple enough to enable an easy use. One of the major difficulties in establishing such models is that in the case of wireless communication with a device located in a lossy medium, it is not always possible to decouple the channel (i.e., the propagation in the medium) from the antenna characteristics, as the near field generated by the antenna can couple to the medium through the losses.
In this presentation, the coupling between antenna near-field and a lossy host body will be analyzed along with the reflection and diffraction at the body-air interface. Simple closed form approximations will be proposed for the link budgets when possible.

 

Biography: Anja Skrivervik obtained her master's degree in electrical engineering from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 1986, and her PhD from the same institution in 1992, for which she received the Latsis award. After a stay at the University of Rennes as an invited Research Fellow and two years in the industry, she returned to EPFL as an Assistant Professor in 1996, and is now a Professeur Titulaire at this institution. In addition, she was a visiting professor at the University of Lund from 2021 to 2024. Her teaching activities include courses on microwaves and antennas. Her research activities include electrically small antennas, implantable and wearable antennas, multifrequency and ultra wideband antennas, and numerical techniques for electromagnetics. She is author or co-author of more than 300 peer reviewed scientific publications.
She is very active in European collaboration and European projects. She was the chairperson of the Swiss URSI from 2006 to 2012, is the Swiss URSI commission B representative since 2012, is a Board member of the European School on Antennas and is frequently requested to review research programs and centers in Europe. She was member of the board of directors of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) from 2017 to 2022.

 

Welcome!

Best regards,
Tommy Svensson, IEEE VT/COM/IT Sweden Chapter