Secure and Efficient Internet of Bodies using Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication
Radiative communication using electromagnetic (EM) fields is the state-of-the-art for connecting wearable and implantable devices enabling prime applications in the fields of connected healthcare, electroceuticals, neuroscience, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) and human-computer interaction (HCI), forming a subset of the Internet of Things called the Internet of body (IoB). 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. Moreover, since only a fraction of the energy is picked up by the intended device, and the need for high carrier frequency compared to information content, wireless communication tends to suffer from poor energy-efficiency (>nJ/bit). Noting that all IoB devices share a common medium, i.e. the human body, utilizing the conductivity of the human the body allows low-loss transmission, termed as human body communication (HBC) and improves energy-efficiency. Conventional HBC implementations still suffer from significant radiation compromising physical security and efficiency. Our recent work has developed Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication (EQS-HBC), a method for localizing signals within the body using low-frequency 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 as a ‘wire’ along with reducing interference.
In this talk, I will explore the fundamentals of radio communication around the human body to lead to the evolution of EQS-HBC and show recent advancements in the field which has a strong promise to become the future of Body Area Network (BAN). I will show the theoretical development of the first Bio-Physical Model of EQS-HBC and how it was leveraged to develop the world’s lowest-energy (<10pJ/b) and world’s first sub-uW Physically and Mathematically Secure IoB Communication SoC, with >100x improvement in energy-efficiency over Bluetooth. Finally, I will highlight the possibilities and applications in the fields of HCI, Medical Device Communication, and Neuroscience including a few videos demonstrations. We will also highlight how such low-power communication in combination with in-sensor intelligence is paving the way forward for Secure and Efficient IoB Sensor Nodes.
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- University of Toronto
- Toronto, Ontario
- Canada M5S 2E4
- Building: Bahen Centre for Information Technology
- Room Number: BA 1240
Speakers
Prof. Shreyas Sen of Elmore Associate Professor of ECE and BME with Purdue University
Biography:
Shreyas Sen (Senior Member, IEEE) received the bachelors degree from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree in ECE from Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA, USA, in 2011 ,He is an Elmore Associate Professor of ECE and BME with Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. He serves as the Director of the Center for Internet of Bodies, Purdue University. He has authored/co-authored three book chapters, over 200 journal and conference paper and has 25 patents granted/pending. His current research interests span mixed-signal circuits/systems and electromagnetics for the Internet of Bodies and hardware security.,Dr. Sen is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award in 2020, the AFOSR Young Investigator Award in 2016, the NSF CISE CRII Award in 2017, the Intel Outstanding Researcher Award in 2020, the Google Faculty Research Award in 2017, the Purdue CoE Early Career Research Award in 2021, the Intel Labs Quality Award in 2012 for industry-wide impact on USB-C type, the Intel Ph.D. Fellowship in 2010, the IEEE Microwave Fellowship in 2008, the GSRC Margarida Jacome Best Research Award in 2007, and nine best paper awards, including IEEE CICC 2019 and 2021 and IEEE HOST 2017–2020, for four consecutive years. He is the inventor of the Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication, or Body as a Wire technology, for which, he is the recipient of the MIT Technology Review top-10 Indian Inventor Worldwide under 35 (MIT TR35 India) Award in 2018 and Georgia Tech 40 Under 40 Award in 2022. To commercialize this invention, he founded Ixana and serves as the Chairman and the CTO and led Ixana to awards, such as the 2x CES Innovation Award in 2024, the 3x EE Times Silicon 100 in 23-25, and the Indiana Startup of the Year Mira Award in 2023. His work has been covered by 250+ news releases worldwide, invited appearance on TEDx Indianapolis, NASDAQ live Trade Talks at CES 2023, Indian National Television CNBC TV18 Young Turks Program, NPR subsidiary Lakeshore Public Radio, and the CyberWire podcast. His work was chosen as one of the top-10 papers in the Hardware Security field (TopPicks 2019). He serves/has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Solid-State Circuits Letters, Nature Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Electronics, and IEEE Design & Test, an Executive Committee Member of IEEE Central Indiana Section, and a Technical Program Committee Member of ISSCC, CICC, DAC, CCS, IMS, DATE, ISLPED, ICCAD, ITC, and VLSI Design.