Abstract

Students will be engaged in design, simulation and evaluation of a body area network using on-skin communication modules. Accurate, real time sensing of body vital functions leads to better preventative medicine approached and more accurate diagnosis. State of the art wireless solutions, such as Bluetooth, attempt to provide such functionality, however their relatively large size and power demands limited their widespread use for personal telemetry. This project advocates the use of a new communication channel instead of air, which is the “human body” itself. Our vision is to provide a network of smart mini-distributed body mounted sensors that can perform personal telemetry and connect to the external world wirelessly using a central hub. The sensors themselves do require a radio frequency section or antennas since they directly interface to the skin (similar to smart watches) and hence will have a significantly reduced area, and use at least an order of magnitude less power, enabling a variety of network architectures and applications. The system will use very low power pulses for communication, well below what is required by health guidelines and exposure limitations. Distributing such small and smart sensors over the human body will allow users to monitor many vital signals, such as body temperature and electrocardiogram with unprecedented accuracy.

Deliverables

The objectives of this project are 1- Review state of the art in the field. 2- Setup a simulation of a body area network using channel models provided by the group. 3- Study power efficiency and network throughput as compared to traditional wireless systems.