Connected Me - Proof of Concept

Abstract: Connected Me is a Human Body Communication (HBC) system, which is used fortransferring data through human body. The working principle is based on theorycalled Body Coupled Communication (BCC), which uses electrostatic couplingfor transferring data between device and human body. Capacitance between bodyand electrode acts as an electrical interface between devices. BCC has become aprominent research area in the field of Personal Area Network (PAN), introducedby Zimmerman in 1995. Until now there have been significant amount of paperspublished on human body models and Analog Front End (AFE), but only fewreports are available in digital baseband processing. The proposed Human Body Communication (HBC) system consists ofdigital baseband and AFE. Digital baseband is used for transferring data packets.AFE is designed for reconstructing signal shape after signal degradation causedby the human body. This thesis implements high speed serial digital communicationsystem for a human body channel. Available modulation schemes andcharacteristics of the Physical layer (PHY) with respect to human body channelare analyzed before implementing the system. The outcome of this thesis is aFPGA demonstrator that shows the possibility of communication through thehuman body.