Understanding the Role of Magnetic and Magneto-Quasistatic Fields in Human Body Communication.

With the advent of wearables, Human Body Communication (HBC) has emerged as a physically secure and power-efficient alternative to the otherwise ubiquitous Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). Whereas the most investigated HBC modalities have been Electric and Electro-quasistatic (EQS) Capacitive and Galvanic, recently Magnetic HBC (M-HBC) has been proposed as a viable alternative. Previous works have investigated M-HBC through application points-of-view, without exploring its fundamental working principle.

Human Body-Electrode Interfaces for Wide-Frequency Sensing and Communication: A Review.

Several on-body sensing and communication applications use electrodes in contact with the human body. Body-electrode interfaces in these cases act as a transducer, converting ionic current in the body to electronic current in the sensing and communication circuits and vice versa. An ideal body-electrode interface should have the characteristics of an electrical short, i.

In-the-Wild Interference Characterization and Modelling for Electro-Quasistatic-HBC With Miniaturized Wearables.

The emergence of Human Body Communication (HBC) as an alternative to wireless body area networks (WBAN) has led to the development of small sized, energy efficient and more secure wearable and implantable devices forming a network in and around the body. Previous studies claim that though HBC is comparatively more secure than WBAN, nevertheless, the electromagnetic (EM) radiative nature of HBC in >10 MHz region makes the information susceptible to eavesdropping. Furthermore, interferences may be picked up by the body due to the human body antenna effect in the 40-400 MHz range.

Inter-body coupling in electro-quasistatic human body communication: theory and analysis of security and interference properties.

Radiative communication using electromagnetic fields is the backbone of today's wirelessly connected world, which implies that the physical signals are available for malicious interceptors to snoop within a 5-10 m distance, also increasing interference and reducing channel capacity. Recently, Electro-quasistatic Human Body Communication (EQS-HBC) was demonstrated which utilizes the human body's conductive properties to communicate without radiating the signals outside the body. Previous experiments showed that an attack with an antenna was unsuccessful at a distance more than 1 cm from the body surface and 15 cm from an EQS-HBC device.