Confined intra-arm communication for medical applications

Abstract

Personal area networks are enablers for many new medical applications. In this work, we present an implementation of such a network through a guided wave on body communication channel. This method allows the creation of high bandwidth communication channels which are confined to the body and improve on previous technologies in terms of privacy and resilience to interference and bandwidth. The technology proposed can also be used for other applications such as tracking infections and especially Nosocomial infections. Nosocomial infections (hospital-acquired infections) are believed to be linked to the death of around 100,000 patients each year in the U.S. only. The technology proposed here allows the detection of a handshake between people and interaction with other objects, thus registering them for analysis of the root cause of an infection.