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INTRODUCTION
Perhaps many of us have imagined the future as a place crawling with antennas and
emitters, due to the huge growth of wireless communications. And it¶s possible that this is
exactly how it will look like, but it seems that the current means of transferring data might
already have a very serious competitor, none other than the human body. NTT Labs, the research
and development wing of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation from Japan, plans to
start conducting field trials for a radical new "human area networking" technology called
RedTacton that uses the naturally-occurring electrical fields of human skin to transmit data.
RedTacton involves initiating communication with a touch that could result in a wide range of
actions in response. So, NTT combined touch and action to coin the term Tacton, and then added
the word Red -- a warm color ± to emphasize warm and cordial communications, creating the
name RedTacton.
According to NTT Laboratories, our whole body is the perfect conductor for electronic
data, meaning that information such as music and films could be downloaded in seconds via your
elbow. NTT, the Japanese telecoms group, and the team of scientists that invented the Red
Tacton system, envisage a future in which the human body acts as a non-stop conduit for
information. Wireless networks ² often hampered by intermittent service ² will eventually be
replaced, NTT says, by ³human area networks´. The developers are convinced that the new
technology will be ³highly disruptive´ ² undermining existing wireless industries and causing
everyone to rethink the way that everyday actions could be undertaken. Field tests are under way
and the first commercial appearance of Red Tacton is expected next year.
Using a novel electro-optic sensor, NTT has already developed a small PCMCIA card-
sized prototype Red Tacton transceiver. Red Tacton enables the first practical Human Area
Network between body-centered electronic devices and PCs or other network devices embedded
in the environment via a new generation of user interface based on totally natural human actions
such as touching, holding, sitting, walking, or stepping on a particular spot.
LITERATURE SURVEY
The system envisioned by NTT, utilizes a conversion method which takes digital data
into a stream of low-power digital pulses. These can be easily transmitted and read back through
the human electric field.
While it is true that similar personal area networks are already accessible by using radio-
based technologies like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, this new wireless technology claims to be able to
send data over the human skin surface at transfer speeds of up to 10Mbps, or better than a
broadband T1 connection. Receiving data in such a system is more complicated because the
strength of the pulses sent through the electric field is so low.
Red Tacton solves this issue by utilizing a technique called electric field photonics: A
laser is passed though an electro-optic crystal, which deflects light differently according to the
strength of the field across it. These deflections are measured and converted back into electrical
signals to retrieve the transmitted data.
According to Tom Zimmerman, inventor of the IBM personal networking system, body-
based networking is more secure than broadcast systems, such as Bluetooth, which have a range
of about 10m.The issue is that with Bluetooth, it is difficult to rein in the signal and restrict it to
the device you are trying to connect to. But in a busy place there could be hundreds of Bluetooth
devices within range.
Moreover, body-based networking seems to allow for more natural interchanges of
information between humans, as only when you are in true proximity you can make this system
work. There are some specific applications that would appear as being ideal matches for Red
Tacton-like technologies.
TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES
3.1 HOW IT WORKS?
RedTacton uses the minute electric field emitted on the surface of the human body.
Technically, it is completely distinct from wireless and infrared.
Red Tacton is a break-through technology that, for the first time, enables reliable high-
speed HAN. In the past, Bluetooth, infrared communications (IrDA), radio frequency ID systems
(RFID), and other technologies have been proposed to solve the "last meter" connectivity
problem.
However, they each have various fundamental technical limitations that constrain their
usage, such as the precipitous fall-off in transmission speed in multi-user environments
producing network congestion.