Enabling Covert Body Area Network using Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication
Enabling Covert Body Area Network using Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication
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DOI：
10.1038/s41598-018-38303-x
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发表时间：
2019-03-11
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Sen, Shreyas
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Das, Debayan;Maity, Shovan;Sen, Shreyas
在可穿戴和可植入设备之间使用电磁（EM）场的辐射通信充当人体周围信息交换的骨干，从而实现了连接医疗保健、电化学、神经科学、增强和虚拟现实领域的主要应用。然而，由于传统无线通信的这种辐射性质，EM信号在所有方向上传播，无意中允许窃听者拦截信息。在这种情况下，人体，主要是由于其高含水量，已经成为一种低损耗传输的媒介，称为人体通信（HBC），实现了可穿戴通信的节能手段。然而，传统的HBC实施方式遭受显著的辐射，这也损害了安全性。在这篇文章中，我们提出了准静电人体通信（EQS-HBC），一种使用低频无载波（宽带）传输在体内定位信号的方法，从而使附近的窃听者很难拦截关键的私人数据，从而产生一个隐蔽的通信信道，即人体。这项工作首次展示和分析了EQS-HBC对私人空间的改善。通过理论建模和分析支持的详细实验表明，由于体上EQS-HBC发射器-人体接口引起的准静态（QS）泄漏对于体上EM无线通信在高达5 m的检测范围内是可检测的，突出了EQS-HBC实现隐蔽通信的潜在优势。
Radiative communication using electro-magnetic (EM) fields amongst the wearable and implantable devices act as the backbone for information exchange around a human body, thereby enabling prime applications in the fields of connected healthcare, electroceuticals, neuroscience, augmented and virtual reality. However, owing to such radiative nature of the traditional wireless communication, EM signals propagate in all directions, inadvertently allowing an eavesdropper to intercept the information. In this context, the human body, primarily due to its high water content, has emerged as a medium for low-loss transmission, termed human body communication (HBC), enabling energy-efficient means for wearable communication. However, conventional HBC implementations suffer from significant radiation which also compromises security. In this article, we present Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication (EQS-HBC), a method for localizing signals within the body using low-frequency carrier-less (broadband) transmission, thereby making it extremely difficult for a nearby eavesdropper to intercept critical private data, thus producing a covert communication channel, i.e. the human body. This work, for the first time, demonstrates and analyzes the improvement in private space enabled by EQS-HBC. Detailed experiments, supported by theoretical modeling and analysis, reveal that the quasistatic (QS) leakage due to the on-body EQS-HBC transmitter-human body interface is detectable up to 5 m detection range for on-body EM wireless communication, highlighting the underlying advantage of EQS-HBC to enable covert communication.