Channel modeling and characterization of capacitive coupling communication within a metal cabinet

An increasing number of various sensors in metallic environment such as vehicle, spacecraft and industrial equipment has contributed to the application of capacitive coupling communication technology, which is considered to be more useful compared with wired communication or traditional wireless communication. In this study, the composition and structure of the communication system were proposed firstly. Then the channel transmission characteristics with different electrode parameters were obtained using finite element simulation model. Moreover, vector network analyzer was used to test the path loss for verifying the simulation findings. The experimental results are consistent with the simulation results, and showed that the transmission gain of the system varied with the electrode parameters. This study can provide theoretical foundation and experimental support for capacitive coupling communication in a metallic environment, and has great significance for promoting the transceiver design and system optimization in the future research.