10-2 (Invited)
Human-Area Networking Technology as a Universal Interface
— Communications through Natural Human Actions: Touching, Holding, Stepping —
Yuichi Kado
NTT Microsystem Integration Laboratories, 3-1, Morinosato Wakamiya, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa Pref., 243-0198 JAPAN
kado@aecl.ntt.co.jp
Abstract
We have developed a human-area networking technology
that uses the surface of the human body as a data transmission
path and an AC electric-field signal with a frequency below the
resonant frequency of the human body. This paper describes
the intra-body communication technologies we are developing
to promote the further evolution of a human-area network in
support of ubiquitous services. It focuses on the three main
features of the technology, promising applications, and an
enabling transceiver technique.
Introduction
When a transmitter is capacitively coupled to the human
body and generates an AC field with a frequency lower than
the resonant frequency of the body (approx. 70-100 MHz), the
signal propagates over the surface of the body. Since it does
not resonate with the body, the body does not act as an antenna.
So, the signal is not radiated into the surroundings, but rather
propagates over the surface and escapes to the Earth ground
[1]-[4]. In T. G. Zimmerman’s electric-field model [1] (Fig. 1),
the body is basically considered to be conductive, which
means that the direction of the induced field is mostly
perpendicular to the body. Moreover, bio-electromagnetic
simulations have shown that almost none of the field
penetrates the body. Clothing, the soles of shoes, and flooring
can be considered capacitive and thus transparent to the AC
signal.
Below, we provide an example of how this phenomenon
can be used in an office entry/exit control system. A card
carried by an employee close to the body transmits an ID signal,
and a receiver built into a door knob picks it up. Authentication
is performed simply by touching the door knob, without the
need to take out the ID card, and the door is unlocked. Ticket
gates in train stations are another possible application. A
receiver is embedded either in the ticket gate itself or in the
floor directly beneath it. Fares are processed and the gate
opens when a person simply touches part of the gate or steps on
that area of the floor, without the need to take out a card and
have it scanned, as is necessary with current contactless
Electric
field
f = 5-30 MHz
Transmitter
Transmitter
Receiver
Earth ground Receiver
Figure 1. AC-field communications using the body surface
102 978-4-86348-010-0
Touch
Communication with
just a touch
Little or no
interference Any Media
No interference,
even in close
Transmission media
is not fixed
quarters
Figure 2. Three Features
solutions. When the receiver is in the floor, the AC
signalpasses through the shoes and flooring, which form a
communications path from the transmitter to the receiver.
Communication based on this principle experiences no
interference, even when several people are in very close
quarters, in contrast to other wireless technologies; and it can
be started and stopped through very natural human actions. We
call this new communications technology, which uses the
surface of the body as a communications channel, RedTacton.
Since it allows communication and various actions (“Act on”)
through natural movements like touching, we combined the
words “Touch” and “Act-on”, making “Tacton”. We then
added the word Red to give a sense of warm communication to
arrive at the final name, RedTacton [5].
RedTacton was introduced at the 2nd World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS 2005) in Tunis in November, 2005
as an advanced information and communication technology
from Japan. Various dynamic exhibits, such as the hand-shake
business-card exchange, were demonstrated and elicited a very
positive response [6].
Three important characteristics and applications
RedTacton has three main features (Fig. 2): (1) The first is
communication by a simple touch. Natural actions like
touching, grasping, sitting, walking, stepping on something, or
kicking can trigger unlocking, the starting a device, or the
retrieval of information. (2) The second is that there is no
interference, even when several people use it in very close
proximity, in contrast to traditional wireless technologies. No
interference means that the communications speed does not
suffer when many people use the system in a small space. (3)
The third is that the transmission medium is not fixed. Any
material with a highly conductive surface is a good
transmission medium, and various materials, such as
dielectrics can be used.
In addition to these features, RedTacton gives an intuitive
sense of the connection to the network, linking the user’s own
actions with the starting and stopping of communication. This
makes the technology a universal data-transmission interface,
with potential for whole new applications areas and the
expansion of the boundaries of ICT [7].
2009 Symposium on VLSI Circuits Digest of Technical Papers
 Printer
Authenticates
ID, then prints
out.
Table LAN
PC connects to
networks by simply
being placed on the
table. No interference
and highly secure.
Suspicious
individual detector
(prevents tailgating)
Detects people with no
transmitter.
Environment-
integrated-type receiver
Figure 3. Secure office space without inconvenience
Secure office space application
Preventing the leakage of confidential information,
including customer data, has become a critical issue for
enterprises; and there is an urgent need to create secure office
spaces. Conversely, as security levels increase, employees
have to authenticate themselves more frequently, which can
lead to a decrease in productivity. RedTacton can solve this
type of problem and create secure office spaces with no sense
of inconvenience due to authentication processes. In our
prototype test bed for such a system (Fig. 3), users place an ID
transmitter card in their trouser pocket or hang it from a strap
around their neck. When a user enters an area, a receiver in the
floor detects their ID through the floor and activates navigation
lights in the floor. A personal post box notifies the user if there
is mail, and is unlocked automatically at a touch. Doors open
automatically when a person simply stands in front of them if
an authorized ID is detected.
These types of systems normally have the drawback of
allowing “tailgating,” which occurs when someone without an
ID just follows someone with an ID in when the door opens.
With this new technology, a suspicious person entering
without an ID transmitter can be detected. By embedding
transmitters and receivers alternately in the floor, a person's
body can become a transmission path when the person simply
walks on the floor. Transmitters and receivers would normally
be concealed beneath the carpet, so intruders would not know
their location; and unless they could fly, they could not avoid
detection. This sort of function is not possible using short
distance wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, or
contactless IC cards. Since T. G. Zimmerman did not discover
this feature of electric-field communications at the time of his
investigations, he set aside his brainchild [8].
The technology can also be used to divide areas into zones
with different security levels, without requiring physical
partitions. For example, the system could be configured to
allow only authorized personnel into a zone where important
documents are stored. A security lamp would illuminate if an
unauthorized person simply stepped into the secure zone. A
secure printing system could also be created. Documents
printed on remote printers would be spooled to the printer, but
2009 Symposium on VLSI Circuits Digest of Technical Papers
Mailbox
Natural zoning Notifies you when
(No partitions needed) there is mail and
Lamps turn on to indicate unlocks at a
permitted areas. touch.
Card-type ID
transmitter
Floor navigation
Provides navigation
Entry/Exit with LED lights on the
Doors open floor.
automatically
for people with
transmitters.
not printed until the author arrived and physically touched the
printer.
Still further, a PC could connect to the Internet, a printer, or
a presentation projector, when it was simply placed on a table,
without the need for any cable connections. A key point is that,
in contrast to a wireless LAN, multiple PCs could use the
system without any interference between them. By simply
wearing the card-style terminal described above, and with no
further action necessary, a totally secure office space can be
created.
Enabling technologies
Figure 4 shows a model of the electric-field distribution
around a human body when an electric-field transmitter and
receiver are attached to the body. The person stands on the
Earth ground, and the transmitter and receiver have both signal
and ground terminals. An AC field can be transmitted along
the surface of the body as long as there is a capacitive
connection. So the terminal is isolated with a layer of
insulation, and no DC current flows into the body. Since the
body is quite a good conductor, an AC electric field forms
perpendicular to its surface. Communication is achieved when
the receiver detects this AC field before it escapes to the Earth
ground. However, part of the field induced on the body returns
to the ground electrode of the transmitter, and a significant part
escapes directly to the Earth ground. Furthermore, the field
distribution changes continuously with a person's movements.
Thus, the receiver must detect a signal that is quite faint and
unstable. This presents an obstacle to obtaining good-quality
transmission and to making the technology practical.
We first describe an equivalent circuit model that simplifies
the basic approach to this problem. On the transmitter side, we
need to address how to efficiently induce an AC electric field
signal on the surface of the body. Both the human body and the
transmitter are floating with respect to the Earth ground (Fig.
5); and they are capacitively-coupled. The capacitance tends to
attenuate the AC signal produced by the transmitter. The
capacitance of the connection also changes continuously as a
person moves. To suppress the effects of changes in this
103
 Ea Eb Ec Es Ṳ Security application
Induced AC Electric field Electric field Electric field detected by Carrier frequency:
ὼ ὼ ᵛ the receiver
electric field returning to escaping (extremely faint and 5 MHz
transmitter to earth unstable) Communication speed:
200 kbps
Modulation scheme:
BPSK
Eb
Receiver Communication
Transmitter protocols: Application- Card-type transmitter Receiver
Ea Es specific (business-card size) (Environment-integrated type)
Highly High-sensitivity Mainly for security use
efficient electric field
AC electric sensing Figure 6. Prototype of communications module
field technology
inducing
technology
Electric
same electrical properties as the human body and built models
field Ec that simulated practical scenarios. One example is a ticket gate
Earth ground
scenario in a train station (Fig. 7). A transmitter is being
Figure 4. Issues with electric-field communications using the carried by a person wearing shoes, and a receiver is embedded
surface of the human body in the floor where the person steps. The human-equivalent
phantom model was a cylinder with a circumference of about
capacitance, we developed technology involving the insertion 80 cm and a height about equal to that of the region of the torso
of a reactance-matching circuit in the output stage of the from the hips to the chest. The lower surface of the phantom
transmitter. The strength of the induced signal is a maximum model was connected to a receiving plate electrode (approx. 40
when the parasitic capacitance resonates with the reactance cm square) through flooring material, and the transmitter was
circuit. placed on the top surface. The signal loss along the
Since the receiver is also floating electrically, it is very transmission path was adjusted by placing insulating spacers
important to suppress common-mode noise, such as ham noise, of various thicknesses between the transmitter and the top of
to enable the detection of a weak signal. Thus, through very the phantom.
careful design, we developed technology that maintains an A digital signal generator was connected to the transmitter,
equivalent differential structure on the receiver side from the and a data logger that recorded the decoded digital signal was
receiver terminal to the input of the first-stage low-noise connected to the receiver, enabling us to measure the error rate
amplifier, and from the ground terminal to the amp ground. of the transmission path. Both a human body and the phantom
This reliably eliminates common-mode noise in the first stage, model can be considered to be conductors for 5-30 MHz
thereby improving the SNR and enabling a weak signal to be signals. So the evaluation system is equivalent to a
amplified. These basic technologies provide stable lumped-constant network. Figure 7 shows the simplest
communication. equivalent circuit model. To evaluate the effects of
Transmitter Receiver
environmental noise, we first created it by applying an
electrode electrode electromagnetic field to each node. Then, we improved the
Transmitter Reactance
matching Receiver transmission quality by using a circuit simulator, such as
Xr
SPICE, to design the characteristics of the noise filter and a
Signal voltage Human
modulation scheme that are immune to environmental noise.
body
Practical Human-body Simulate with
Transmitter scenario phantom model equivalent circuit
Compare
ground Receiver ground

Floating Eval. transmission quality

Floating Tx
capacitance (Error rate, etc.)
capacitance
Earth ground Environmental
Tx noise
Tx

Figure 5. Technologies for stable communication

Phantom
We fabricated a prototype portable card transmitter and a Human
Body

receiver (Fig. 6) that can be built into various objects in our ᵱᶒᶃᶎ Rx
Rx

surroundings, such as doors and floors. It uses a 5-MHz carrier Rx

frequency and BPSK modulation; and it achieves a

transmission rate of 200 kbps. In the applications described
above (entry/exit control, ticket gate, secure zone), the
transmitter can be carried in the breast pocket of a jacket or in a
trouser pocket. It transmits an ID and establishes
communication with a packet error of less than 10-3. This
transmitter can operate for approximately one year on a single
CR3032 button-type lithium-ion battery [9].
Evaluation of communications quality
To evaluate the quality of communication that uses the
human body as a medium, we used a phantom model with the
Figure 7. Modeling a practical scenario
A photograph of the actual evaluation system is shown in
Figure 8, together with some measurement results. The
transmitter on top of the phantom model output a 5-MHz
carrier with BPSK modulation at a data rate of 200 Kbps. The
digital signal was made up of 10-byte packets. The bottom
surface of the phantom model was connected to a terminal
embedded in the floor through flooring material; and the
terminal was, in turn, connected to the first-stage low-noise
amp of the receiver. The demodulated digital signal was stored

104 978-4-86348-010-0 2009 Symposium on VLSI Circuits Digest of Technical Papers

 ᵏᵎᴾᶀᶗᶒᶃᶑᵍᶎᵿᶁᶉᶃᶒ frequency of the human body. Unlike conventional
100
short-distance wireless technologies, there is no interference;
and communication can be started and stopped with a simple
10-1 Transmission-quality action, providing an intuitive awareness of the connection.
evaluation equipment Transmitter
Although this technology employs a weak AC electric field, it
Packet error rate

10-2 easily satisfies the standards for weak transmitters and

Floor terminal +
protective guidelines. Thus, we believe that this technology
10-3 Receiver can be used as a universal interface for transmitting data in
various application areas, such as security systems, ITS,
10-4
medical information systems, and production management
Human body phantom model
systems, and that it offers a new approach that combines ICT
10-5
technology with these fields.
Received power level [a.u.]
Figure 8. Example of transmission-quality measurements
Production
Smaller Medical-care
in a data logger in the receiver and compared with the original systems management

Application domain (Market size)

module
Auto
signal to compute the error rate. The relationship between error -mobile
Promising
rate and received power level is shown in Figure 8. target
area
Payment
systems
Walk -through
gate
Applications and future developments Gate
䉭䊷䊃

Business - card
As concerns over safety, security, and health grow in our size Total office security
aging society, this is a promising technology for new Entry/exit
control Cabinet Printer
Initial target
applications in areas like secure systems, ITS, medical area
information systems, production/work management systems,
and payment/settlement systems (Fig. 9). Some promising
applications are a ticket gate for train stations that allows
㵭08 㵭10 㵭12 㵭14 㵭16 㵭18 㵭20 Year
passengers to pass through empty-handed, a system in
automobiles that can recognize whether the driver or a Figure 9. Applications and future directions
passenger performed an action, and an aircraft technology that
can automatically record the actions of the pilot and copilot. A
medical information system could allow a doctor to gather References
information from bio-sensors with a simple touch, or ensure
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to improve efficiency and prevent errors. A next-generation [2] M. Shinagwa, et. al., “A near-field-sensing transceiver for
intra-body communication based on the electro-optic effect,”
settlement system could replace the current contactless IC card
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wireless interface with RedTacton embedded in mobile phones 2004.
to enable empty-handed payment. [3] N. Cho, et. al., “The Human Body Characteristics as a Signal
The miniaturization of the transceiver module that employs Transmission Medium for Intra Body Communication,” IEEE
this technology is spurring the further expansion of RedTacton Trans. on Microwave Theory and Techniques. Vol. 55, No. 5,
applications. The first prototype module had a volume as large pp. 1080--1086. 2007.
as 20 cc, excluding the coin-type batteries and the electrodes. [4] A. Fazzi, at. al., “A 2.75 mW Wideband Correlation-Based
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phones, wristwatches, keyholders, and so on. The key point in [6] World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
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[8] "NTT’s shaky approach to data transfer targets a solved
problem," H. Goldstein, IEEE Spectrum January 2006, pp.
We have developed a communications technology that
24-25.
uses the surface of the human body as a medium and an AC [9] http://www.nel.co.jp/new/information/2008_04_23.html
electric field with a frequency (5-30 MHz) below the resonant

2009 Symposium on VLSI Circuits Digest of Technical Papers 105