SBIR Phase I: Physically Secure Wearable Key using Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是实现低能耗、低功耗、物理安全的体域网络（BAN）开放应用和用例。ban是可穿戴计算设备的无线网络。典型的BAN设备以植入物的形式嵌入体内，在固定位置表面安装在身体上，或与人类携带的配套设备结合在一起。目前的标准BAN技术依靠电磁波进行BAN通信，这种通信方式在物理上不安全，并且与BAN节点中的传感和计算相比消耗的功率要多出几个数量级，使得通信链路成为超低功耗BAN设备的能量瓶颈。这个项目将带来一种全新的设备，它使用人体作为“电线”，实现比目前人体周围通信低几个数量级的功率，同时使用准静态人体通信技术在物理上是安全的。这项技术将使无电池BAN操作成为可能，并使远程生理健康监测、运动员表现监测、安全访问控制、神经监测以及未来可能的脑机接口等应用成为可能。这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目旨在设计一种利用人体作为安全通信媒介的可穿戴带演示。该带利用准静态人体通信（EQS-HBC）来演示身体周围设备之间的无缝通信，信号泄漏主要包含在身体内部。这款机身线原型有望通过减少100倍的能量来解决延长电池寿命的问题，从而实现更持久、更智能、更小（新外形因素）的设备。能源的减少和物理安全性的提高（除了加密之外）可能会为许多具有新形式因素的新传感器节点（例如，连接补丁）打开可能性。研究人体姿势、周围环境、人与人之间的变化对人体整体特性的影响，以及人体作为通信通道的安全性，将从电路设计的角度了解必要的设计规范，并使无电池、生理传感器节点等应用成为现实。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to enable low energy, low power, physically secure Body Area Network (BAN) opening applications and use cases. BANs are wireless networks of wearable computing devices. Typical BAN devices are embedded inside the body as implants, surface-mounted on the body in a fixed position, or incorporated into accompanying devices which humans carry. Today's standard BAN technologies rely on electromagnetic waves for BAN communication, which is not physically secure and consume orders of magnitude more power compared to sensing and computation in a BAN node, making the communication link the energy bottleneck for ultra-low-power BAN devices. This project will lead to a fundamentally new class of devices that use the human body as a "wire" to achieve orders of magnitude lower power than today’s communication around the human body while simultaneously being physically secure using Electro Quasi-Static Human Body Communication technology. This technology will make battery-less BAN operation possible and enable applications like remote physiological health monitoring, athlete performance monitoring, secure access control, neural monitoring, and possibly brain-machine interfaces in the future. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to design a demo wearable band by utilizing the human body as a secure communication medium. The band utilizes Electro-Quasi-Static-Human Body Communication (EQS-HBC) to demonstrate seamless communication between devices around the body with signal leakage primarily contained within the body. The body-wire prototype is expected to solve the problem of increased battery life by achieving a 100x reduction in energy, allowing longer-lasting, smarter, smaller (new form-factors) devices. The energy reduction and improved physical security (in addition to encryption) may open possibilities for many new sensor nodes with new form factors (e.g., connected patch). The studies about the effect of human body postures, surrounding environment, inter-human variation on the overall characteristics, and security of the human body as a communication channel will provide an understanding of the necessary design specifications from a circuit design perspective and make applications like battery-less, physiological sensor nodes practical.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.