Global Growth and Trends of In-Body Communication Research—Insight From Bibliometric Analysis

Syifaul Fuada; Guanghui Ma; Marcos Katz

doi:10.3991/ijoe.v20i01.44967

Authors

Syifaul Fuada Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5258-5149
Guanghui Ma Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland
Marcos Katz Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v20i01.44967

Keywords:

Bibliometric analysis, VOS Viewer, In-Body Communication, Optical Wireless Communication, Implants, In-Body devices

Abstract

A bibliometric analysis was conducted to examine research on in-body communication. This study aimed to assess the research growth in different countries, identify influential authors for potential international collaboration, investigate research challenges, and explore future prospects for in-body communication. A total of 148 articles written in English from journals and conference proceedings were gathered from the Scopus database. These articles cover the period from 2006 until August 2023. VOS Viewer 1.6.19 and Tableau Cloud were used to analyze the data. The analysis reveals that research on in-body communication has shown fluctuations but overall tends to increase. The United States, Finland, and Japan were identified as the leading countries (top three) in terms of publication quantity, while researchers from Norway, Finland, and Morocco received the highest number of citations. The University of Oulu in Finland has emerged as a productive institution in this field. Collaborative research opportunities exist with the countries mentioned above or with authors who have expertise in this topic. The dominant research topic within this field pertains to ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. One of the future challenges in this field is the exploration of optical wireless communication (OWC) as a potential communication medium for in-body devices, such as electronic devices implanted in the human body. This includes improving performance to meet the requirements for in-body communication devices. Additionally, this paper provides further insights into the progress of research on OWC for in-body communication conducted in our laboratory.

Author Biographies

Syifaul Fuada, Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland

Syifaul Fuada received a B.A. in Electrical Engineering Education from Universitas Negeri Malang (UM), Indonesia, and an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering option Microelectronics from the School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia. He was with the University Center of Excellence at Microelectronics (PUI-PT Mikroelektronika) ITB from 2016-2018 as a main researcher. He is an University lecturer at the Program Studi Sistem Telekomunikasi Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI). He is pursuing a doctoral degree at the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (FITEE), Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. His research interests include Optical Wireless Communications and medical ICT. Email: syifaulfuada@upi.edu or syifaul.fuada@oulu.fi.

Guanghui Ma, Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland

Guanghui Ma earned his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China, in 2016. He then achieved a Master's degree in Engineering with first-class honours from the University of Melbourne in 2018. Dr. Ma completed his PhD at Monash University, Australia. Currently, Dr. Ma is conducting research at the Centre for Wireless Communications in the University of Oulu, Finland. His work predominantly centres around the evolution of 6G network architecture, Internet of Things (IoT), visible light communications, and the integration of heterogeneous optical and RF networks. Email: huanghui.ma@oulu.fi

Marcos Katz, Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland

Marcos Katz received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina, in 1987, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Oulu, Finland, in 1995 and 2002, respectively. He has worked in different positions at Nokia, Finland, from 1987 to 2001. From 2001 to 2002, he was a Research Scientist with the Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu. From 2003 to 2005, he was a Principal Engineer with the Advanced Research Laboratory, Telecommunications Research and Development Center, Samsung Electronics, Suwon, South Korea. From 2006 to 2009, he has worked as a Chief Research Scientist with VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland. He has been a Professor with the Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, since December 2009. He has written and edited six books in different areas of mobile and wireless communications. He has written more than 170 publications and holds more than 50 patents. He has served as the Chair of Working Group 5 (on short-range communications) for the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF), from 2008 to 2012. Email: marcos.katz@oulu.fi