BDYWR, LLC — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: AF19C-T010

Description

Real Time pilot health/performance monitoring requires body worn physiological sensors to communicate their data to a monitoring device in the cockpit. Traditionally Radio Frequency (RF) based wireless communication would be used in these scenarios. However, these RF waves can potentially affect critical radio communication between the airplane and ground. Electro Quasi-Static Human Body Communication (EQS-HBC), which uses the body as a conducting medium for communication, can be utilized as a potential alternative method in this scenario. Using high impedance capacitive termination at the receiver end it is possible to utilize the body as a wire in EQS-HBC. This wire-like behavior enables the confinement of the signal within the body. As a result, any communication from the wearable device has no effect on the radio communication between the airplane and ground, enabling applications like pilot monitoring. In Phase-I of this project we want to evaluate the feasibility and understand the design requirements of a EQS-HBC based pilot monitoring system in a heavily instrumented airplane cockpit environment. Apart from this particular scenario the above technique can also be used for applications such as secure authentication, information exchange between persons during handshake etc.