METAMATERIAL TEXTILES FOR BODY SENSOR NETWORKS

Abstract

Wireless networks of sensors, displays, and smart devices on the body offer powerful capabilities for health monitoring, medical interventions, and human-machine interfaces. Current wireless body networks, however, are energy inefficient and vulnerable to eavesdropping because they rely on the radiation of radio-waves into the surrounding space. These limitations at the physical layer of the network currently impose strenuous energy and computation requirements on body-based sensors that limit their size, lifetime, and functionality. In this thesis, I describe the design and applications of metamaterial textiles —clothing structured with conductive fabrics that confine the electromagnetic waves propagating around the human body by surface plasmon-like modes at radio communication frequencies — to create highly efficient and secure wireless body sensor networks. These metamaterial textiles induce wireless signals emitted by nearby antennas to propagate around the body as surface waves and radiate as propagating waves in directions otherwise obstructed by the body. Metamaterial textiles with such unprecedented electromagnetic properties will enable new capabilities for networked wearable technologies.